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. 2020 Oct 1:9:100072.
doi: 10.1016/j.wroa.2020.100072. eCollection 2020 Dec 1.

Wastewater treatment efficacy evaluated with in vitro bioassays

Peta A Neale  1   2 , Jake W O'Brien  2 , Lisa Glauch  3 , Maria König  3 , Martin Krauss  3 , Jochen F Mueller  2 , Ben Tscharke  2 , Beate I Escher  1   2   3   4
Affiliations

Wastewater treatment efficacy evaluated with in vitro bioassays

Peta A Neale et al. Water Res X. .

Abstract

Bioassays show promise as a complementary approach to chemical analysis to assess the efficacy of wastewater treatment processes as they can detect the mixture effects of all bioactive chemicals in a sample. We investigated the treatment efficacy of ten Australian wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) covering 42% of the national population over seven consecutive days. Solid-phase extracts of influent and effluent were subjected to an in vitro test battery with six bioassays covering nine endpoints that captured the major modes of action detected in receiving surface waters. WWTP influents and effluents were compared on the basis of population- and flow-normalised effect loads, which provided insights into the biological effects exhibited by the mixture of chemicals before and after treatment. Effect removal efficacy varied between effect endpoints and depended on the treatment process. An ozonation treatment step had the best treatment efficacy, while WWTPs with only primary treatment resulted in poor removal of effects. Effect removal was generally better for estrogenic effects and the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor than for inhibition of photosynthesis, which is consistent with the persistence of herbicides causing this effect. Cytotoxicity and oxidative stress response provided a sum parameter of all bioactive chemicals including transformation products and removal was poorer than for specific endpoints except for photosynthesis inhibition. Although more than 500 chemicals were analysed, the detected chemicals explained typically less than 10% of the measured biological effect, apart from algal toxicity, where the majority of the effect could be explained by one dominant herbicide, diuron. Overall, the current study demonstrated the utility of applying bioassays alongside chemical analysis to evaluate loads of chemical pollution reaching WWTPs and treatment efficacy.

Keywords: Australia; Effect removal; Iceberg modelling; In vitro bioassay; Wastewater treatment plant.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A) 17β-estradiol equivalent concentrations (EEQbio) and 17β-estradiol equivalent load (EELbio) for all influent samples; B) influent EELbio for each WWTP, with the separate dots indicating a different day. The red line is the average amount of estrone, 17β-estradiol and 17α-ethinylestradiol excreted per person per day and converted to EELchem (9870 ngE2/person/day); C) bioanalytical equivalent load (BELbio) of the influents averaged over 7 days. The reference compounds for BELbio are given in Table 1 and are reported as ng/person/day with the exception of dichlorvos-EL, which is given as μg/person/day. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Average BELbio and TULbio removal efficacy compared with removal efficacy of individual detected chemicals in each WWTP based on mass load (grey dots). AhR: aryl hydrocarbon receptor; PPARγ: peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma; ERα: estrogen receptor α; GR: glucocorticoid receptor; OSR: oxidative stress response, PSII: photosystem II.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Average contribution of known chemicals to B[a]P-ELchem (ngB[a]P/person/day) in influent and effluent for activation of AhR.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Average contribution of known chemicals to DELchem (ngdiuron/person/day) in influent and effluent for 2h PSII inhibition.
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