Bisphenol A And Its Analogues:Removal Mechanisms In Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants And Human Exposure Analysis

Bisphenol A and its analogues pollution in enviroment is increasingly a world concern.There is urgent need to understand the removal mechanisms of Bisphenol A and its analogues in municipal wastewater treatment plants and human exposure of Bisphenol A and its analogues.Thus,The occurrence and removal mechanisms of bisphenol A(BPA)and its analogues in municipal WWTPs were critically reviewed in this study.BPA appeared to be the dominant bisphenol,and the removal efficiency of bisphenols was in the order of bisphenol AP>bisphenol P>bisphenol F>bisphenol Z>bisphenol C>bisphenol S>bisphenol B>BPA>bisphenol E>bisphenol AF.It was also found that BPA removal showed linear relation-ships to those of its analogues,which have been proven by BPA vs BPS or BPF.BPA removal performances in different treatment processes ranked from low to high are primary treatment,lagoon process,biological aerated filter,and activated sludge.Lab-scale studies showed that>50%BPA can be removed by sewage sludge estimated with the BPA solid water distribution coefficients,which showed that sludge adsorption played an important role on BPA removal.The theoretically predicted removal of BPA in municipal WWTP showed that it is readily biodegradable,which deviate from its on-site investigations.Existence of BPA conjugates in raw municipal wastewater as well as newly produced BPA degraded or migrated from microplastic materials are possible two main reasonsThis study also evaluated human exposure to bisphenol A and its analogues based on human urinary excretion data and wastewater-based epidemiology(WBE)The results showed that the world’s average human daily intake ranked from high to low is in order of bisphenol A,bisphenol F,bisphenol S,bisphenol P,bisphenol AP,bisphenol B,bisphenol Z,and bisphenol AF,and their corresponding human daily intakes are 2.53,0.68,0.60,0.41,0.36,0.29,0.24,and 0.06 μg/p/day,respectively BPA is clearly the dominant bisphenol for human exposure.However,the results also showed that humans have been widely exposed to BPA analogues as well.Many BPA analogues showed similar estrogenic activities to those of BPA;therefore,the adverse effects of BPA and its analogues on humans should be comprehensively evaluated The nominal exposure levels obtained based on wastewater-based epidemiology ranked high to low are in order of BPA(513.73 μg/p/day),BPF(10.20 μg/p/day),BPS(5.21 μg/p/day),BPP(1.15 μg/p/day),BPZ(0.66 μg/p/day),BPB(0.61μg/p/day),BPAF(0.58 μg/p/day),and BPAP(0.35 μg/p/day).The world’s human average daily intakes of BPA and its analogues are only 0.5-47.9%of the intakes of their corresponding human nominal exposures.This study suggests that other sources rather human excretions are important origins in municipal wastewater,which indicates that the WBE method based on parent compounds is inappropriate for evaluations of human daily intakes of BPA and its analogues,neither for other industrial compounds that have multiple important sources.Three main important sources of BPA and its analogues in municipal waste-water are likely effluents of industrial wastewater,discharges of hospital wastewater,and landfill leachates.To decrease dis-charges of BPA and its analogues to the natural environment,any mixing of industrial and hospital wastewater as well as landfill leachates in municipal wastewater is not favorablePolycarbonate(PC)and polyethylene terephthalate(PET)as the package materials have been widely used for Chinese bottled water,from which estrogenic bisphenol analogues might migrate into bottled water.Therefore,there is a strong need to investigate the occurrence and potential risk of such estrogenic bisphenol analogues in Chinese bottled waters.In this study,a GC-MS method was first established and validated for determination of trace-level ten kinds of bisphenol analogues,including bisphenol A,bisphenol B,bisphenol C,bisphenol E,bisphenol F,bisphenol P,bisphenol S,bisphenol Z,bisphenol AP,and bisphenl AF.BPA was detected in all eleven brands of PET bottled waters with concentrations of 12.4-44.9 ng/L.Some bishophenol analogues were detected in PET bottled waters,and the average concentrations of BPA,BPE,and BPAF in PET bottled waters were found to be 20.8,1.8,and 2.2 ng/L,respectively.The other eight bisphenol analogues were not detected in PET bottled waters.On the other hand,BPA was detected with high concentrations of 111.8 to 6452.8 ng/L in ten brands of PC bottled water.The average concentrations of BP A,BPS,BPAP,and BPAF were determined to be 1394.3,1.9,1.4 and 1.0 ng/L,respectively,while the other seven bisphenol analogues were not detected.High BPA concentration detected in PC bottled waters would remarkably increase human BPA daily intake through daily consumption of such bottled waters Meanwhile,high estrogen equivalence(EEQ)in PC bottled waters of.China is mainly due to the presence of BPA,which may imply adverse effect on human Therefore,further investigation should be dedicated to assess PC bottled water-associated BPA risks in a more holistic manner.