Occurrence and removal of phenolic endocrine disrupting chemicals in the water treatment processes

This paper evaluated the occurrence and removal efficiency of four selected phenolic endocrine disrupting chemicals (bisphenol A (BPA), octylphenol (OP), nonylphenol (NP) and diethylstilbestrol (DES)) in two drinking waterworks in Jiangsu province which take source water from Taihu Lake. The recombined yeast estrogen screen (YES) and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) were applied to assess the estrogenicity and detect the estrogens in the samples. The estrogen equivalents (EEQs) ranged from nd (not detected) to 2.96 ng/L, and the estrogenic activities decreased along the processes. Among the 32 samples, DES prevailed in all samples, with concentrations ranging 1.46–12.0 ng/L, BPA, OP and NP were partially detected, with concentrations ranging from nd to 17.73 ng/L, nd to 0.49 ng/L and nd to 3.27 ng/L, respectively. DES was found to be the main contributor to the estrogenicity (99.06%), followed by NP (0.62%), OP (0.23%) and BPA (0.09%). From the observation of treatment efficiency, the advanced treatment processes presented much higher removal ratio in reducing DES, the biodegradation played an important role in removing BPA, ozonation and pre-oxidation showed an effective removal on all the four estrogens; while the conventional ones can also reduce all the four estrogens.