Impact of legacy and unintentionally produced polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in effluents from two wastewater treatment plants in rivers near Barcelona, Spain.

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  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Elsevier Country of Publication: Netherlands NLM ID: 0330500 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1879-1026 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00489697 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Sci Total Environ Subsets: PubMed not MEDLINE; MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: Amsterdam, Elsevier.
    • Abstract:
      Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a family of 209 congeners listed as Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Stockholm Convention. Although there has been a lot of focus on those congeners present in the Aroclor or Clophen technical mixtures commercialized in the past (legacy PCBs), other industrial processes such as paint and pigment production can generate other congeners as byproducts (Unintentionally Produced PCBs or UP-PCBs). The present study focuses on the analysis of 72 PCB congeners (including 42 UP-PCBs) in the two major rivers surrounding the city of Barcelona -Llobregat and Besós rivers-, and their levels in two wastewater treatment plants during the production of effluents and reclaimed water. It was observed that WWTP can efficiently remove PCBs from untreated water during sludge production where concentrations are six orders of magnitude higher than in water (in the ng g -1 and pg L -1 ranges, respectively). Although PCB levels in the effluent and reclaimed water replenishing the rivers are not negligible, these do not significantly increase the concentrations already found in the studied rivers, and in most cases PCB concentrations in river water are reduced after merging with the reclaimed water due to dilution effect. The presence of UP-PCB-11 (not present in the Aroclor technical mixtures) in the analyzed water and sludge samples is significant (ranging from 22 to 25 % of the total PCB amount in the Besós river), being often one of the most abundant PCB congeners.
      Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.
      (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)
    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: GC-HRMS; PCBs; Reclaimed water; Sludge analysis; Unintentionally produced PCBs; WWTP
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20240729 Latest Revision: 20240912
    • Publication Date:
      20240912
    • Accession Number:
      10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175095
    • Accession Number:
      39074743