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Water Science & Technology Vol 42 No 7-8 pp 23–30 © IWA Publishing 2000 Behaviour of nonylphenol ethoxylates in sewage treatment plants in Japan – biotransformation and ecotoxicityM Fujita*, M Ike**, K Mori***, H Kaku****, Y Sakaguchi*****, M Asano******, H Maki******* and T Nishihara*********
Department of Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering,
Osaka University, 2-1, Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
ABSTRACT Behavior of nonylphenol polyethoxylates (NPnEOs, n; number of ethoxy units) in 40 full-scale sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Japan was studied. Primary effluent (PE), secondary effluent (SE) and final effluent (FE) samples were collected from the STPs, and NPnEOs, their metabolic intermediates and related halogenated derivatives were quantitatively analyzed. Parent NPnEOs (n=4–18) were detected at concentrations between 5.1 and 1035  g/l with the average value of 296 g/l in the
PEs from all the STPs, indicating widespread pollution of NPnEOs in Japan.
The analyses of SEs revealed that normal biological treatment can
relatively efficiently remove NPnEOs, however, the biotransformation
led to the formation of biologically-refractory metabolites like
nonylphenol (NP), NPnEOs with shorter ethoxy chains (n=1–3;
NP1-3EO) and nonylphenol carboxylic acids (NP1-3EC). Halogenated
(chlorinated or brominated) NPnEOs and/or NPnECs (n=1–2),
which are considered to be produced as by-products during the disinfection
processes using chlorination, were also found in SEs and/or FEs from
25 STPs. The ecotoxicity assays showed that the metabolic intermediates
of NPnEOs possess higher acute toxicity against Daphnia magna and
estrogenic activity than the parent surfactant NPnEOs.
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