Behavior and occurrence of estrogens in municipal sewage treatment plants - I. Investigations in Germany, Canada and Brazil

The developed method enables the quantification of estrogens in sewage samp les down to 1 ng/l and in river water down to 0.5 ng/l. Mean recoveries of the analytes in ground water after SPE extraction, clean-up and derivatizat ion generally exceeded 75%. The determined R.S.D. varied from 0 to 14% at a spiking revel of 0.05 mu g/l. Even in the raw influent and the final efflu ent from municipal STPs the mean recoveries of estrogens were mostly above 70%. Using this method the behavior and occurrence of natural estrogens and synthetic contraceptives in municipal sewage treatment plants (STP) were i nvestigated in German and Canadian facilities. In the sewage of a German mu nicipal STP close to Frankfurt/Main 17 beta-estradiol and estrone were dete rmined, with mean concentrations of 0.015 mu g/l and 0.027 mu g/l, respecti vely. In two investigated municipal STPs, 17 beta-estradiol and 16 alpha-hy droxyestrone were eliminated with a higher efficiency than 17 alpha-ethinyl estradiol and estrone. In Canadian and German STP discharges estrone, 17 be ta-estradiol, 17 alpha-ethinylestradiol and 16a-hydroxyestrone were frequen tly detected within the lower ng/l-range. A maximum concentration was found for estrone with 70 ng/l. In 15 investigated German rivers and streams onl y estrone was present with a maximum concentration of 1.6 ng/l. (C) 1999 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.