Occurrence of emerging contaminants in biosolids in northern Queensland, Australia
Kumar, Ravinder, Whelan, Anna, Cannon, Patrick, Sheehan, Madoc, Reeves, Louise, and Antunes, Elsa (2023) Occurrence of emerging contaminants in biosolids in northern Queensland, Australia. Environmental Pollution, 330. 121786.
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Abstract
This study aims to identify and quantify different classes of emerging contaminants (ECs), such as pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), heavy metals (HMs), polycyclic musks (PMs) in biosolids from different sewage treatment plants (STPs) from regional councils across Northern Queensland, Australia. Biosolids samples were named BS1 to BS7 for each council. The results revealed significant variations in the concentrations of different ECs in biosolids which could be explained in some instances by the characteristics of the upstream sewage network. For instance, BS4-biosolids from a small agricultural shire (largely sugarcane) showed the highest concentration of zinc and copper, which were 2430 and 1050 mg/kg, respectively. Among PPCPs, the concentration of ciprofloxacin was found to be the highest in BS3 and BS5, two large regional council areas which are a mix of domestic and industrial (predominantly domestic) biosolids of 1010 and 1590 ng/g, respectively. In addition, the quantity of sertraline was consistently high in all biosolids except from BS7, one of the smaller regional councils, which is indicative of the domestic catchments attached. PFAS compounds were detected in all biosolids samples except in BS6, one of the small (agricultural and tourist) catchments. Two PFAS compounds emerged as the most common pollutants that were perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). The largest industrial catchment biosolids, BS2 showed the highest concentration of PFOS at 253 ng/g, while the smallest regional council, BS7 showed the maximum concentration of 7.90 ng/g of PFOA. Overall, this study concludes that certain ECs such as HMs, antibiotics, PFOS and PFOA in biosolids may pose high environmental risks.
| Item ID: | 78911 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1873-6424 |
| Keywords: | Biosolids, Emerging contaminants, Environmental risk, Heavy metals, PFAS, Pharmaceuticals and personal care products, Polycyclic musks |
| Copyright Information: | © 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/). |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Oct 2023 22:48 |
| FoR Codes: | 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4105 Pollution and contamination > 410599 Pollution and contamination not elsewhere classified @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1899 Other environmental management > 189999 Other environmental management not elsewhere classified @ 100% |
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