Degradation and environmental risk of surfactants after the application of compost sludge to the soil

Evaluation of biodegradability and biotoxicity of surfactants in soil

In this study, the biodegradability and biotoxicity of four surfactants, i.e. modified heterogeneous alcohol ether, fatty acid methyl ester ethoxylates, Tween-80 and rhamnolipid, under natural soil conditions were investigated.

Achilles heel of environmental risk from recycling of sludge to soil as amendment: A summary in recent ten years (2007-2016)

Recycling sludge as a soil amendment has both positive and negative effects because of its enrichment in both nutrients and contaminants. So far, the negative effect has to be extensively investigated that the severities of different types of contaminants also remain unclear. The environmental behavior and risk of organic contaminant and pharmaceuticals, heavy metal and salt as well as pathogenic microorganisms brought by sludge amendment are summarized and discussed here. Organic contaminants and pharmaceuticals are typically found at low concentrations in sludge, the risks from sludge-amended soil decrease over time owing to its biodegradability. On the other hand, application of sludge generally increases soil salinity, which may cause physiological damage to plants grown in sludge-amended soil. In some extent, this negative effect can be alleviated by means of dilution; however, greater attention should be paid to long term increasing possible risk of eutrophication. Heavy metal (particularly of mobile heavy metals, such as Cd) with high concentrations in sludge and soil receiving considerable sludge can cause its incremental abundance in soil and crop contamination, further posing risks to humans, but most cases showed that there remained not excessive in heavy metal caused by sludge amendment. It is worth noting that increasing soil organic matter content may reduce transfer of heavy metal from soil to crops, but not restrict its uptake by crops at all. Combined literature together, it is summarized that heavy metal becomes a relatively severe bottleneck in recycling of sludge as soil amendment due to its non-biodegradability and potential damage to health by adventuring contamination from agricultural products. Particular attention should therefore be paid to long term monitoring the change of heavy metals concentration in sludge amended soil.

Micelles as Soil and Water Decontamination Agents

Contaminated soil and water pose a serious threat to human health and ecosystem. For the treatment of industrial effluents or minimizing their detrimental effects, preventive and remedial approaches must be adopted prior to the occurrence of any severe environmental, health, or safety hazard. Conventional treatment methods of wastewater are insufficient, complicated, and expensive. Therefore, a method that could use environmentally friendly surfactants for the simultaneous removal of both organic and inorganic contaminants from wastewater is deemed a smart approach. Surfactants containing potential donor ligands can coordinate with metal ions, and thus such compounds can be used for the removal of toxic metals and organometallic compounds from aqueous systems. Surfactants form host-guest complexes with the hydrophobic contaminants of water and soil by a mechanism involving the encapsulation of hydrophobes into the self-assembled aggregates (micelles) of surfactants. However, because undefined amounts of surfactants may be released into the aqueous systems, attention must be paid to their own environmental risks as well. Moreover, surfactant remediation methods must be carefully analyzed in the laboratory before field implementation. The use of biosurfactants is the best choice for the removal of water toxins as such surfactants are associated with the characteristics of biodegradability, versatility, recovery, and reuse. This Review is focused on the currently employed surfactant-based soil and wastewater treatment technologies owing to their critical role in the implementation of certain solutions for controlling pollution level, which is necessary to protect human health and ensure the quality standard of the aquatic environment.

Surfactants in aquatic and terrestrial environment: occurrence, behavior, and treatment processes

Surfactants belong to a group of chemicals that are well known for their cleaning properties. Their excessive use as ingredients in care products (e.g., shampoos, body wash) and in household cleaning products (e.g., dishwashing detergents, laundry detergents, hard-surface cleaners) has led to the discharge of highly contaminated wastewaters in aquatic and terrestrial environment. Once reached in the different environmental compartments (rivers, lakes, soils, and sediments), surfactants can undergo aerobic or anaerobic degradation. The most studied surfactants so far are linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), alkylphenol ethoxylate (APEOs), and alcohol ethoxylate (AEOs). Concentrations of surfactants in wastewaters can range between few micrograms to hundreds of milligrams in some cases, while it reaches several grams in sludge used for soil amendments in agricultural areas. Above the legislation standards, surfactants can be toxic to aquatic and terrestrial organisms which make treatment processes necessary before their discharge into the environment. Given this fact, biological and chemical processes should be considered for better surfactants removal. In this review, we investigate several issues with regard to: (1) the toxicity of surfactants in the environment, (2) their behavior in different ecological systems, (3) and the different treatment processes used in wastewater treatment plants in order to reduce the effects of surfactants on living organisms.

Impact of compost process conditions on organic micro pollutant degradation during full scale composting

Knowledge about the effects of oxygen concentration, nutrient availability and moisture content on removal of organic micro-pollutants during aerobic composting is at present very limited. Impact of oxygen concentration, readily available nitrogen content (NH4(+), NO3(-)), and moisture content on biological transformation of 15 key organic micro-pollutants during composting, was therefore investigated using bench-scale degradation experiments based on non-sterile compost samples, collected at full-scale composting facilities. In addition, the adequacy of bench-scale composting experiments for representing full-scale composting conditions, was investigated using micro-pollutant concentration measurements from both bench- and full-scale composting experiments. Results showed that lack of oxygen generally prevented transformation of organic micro-pollutants. Increasing readily available nitrogen content from about 50 mg N per 100 g compost to about 140 mg N per 100 g compost actually reduced micro-pollutant transformation, while changes in compost moisture content from 50% to 20% by weight, only had minor influence on micro-pollutant transformation. First-order micro-pollutant degradation rates for 13 organic micro-pollutants were calculated using data from both full- and bench-scale experiments. First-order degradation coefficients for both types of experiments were similar and ranged from 0.02 to 0.03 d(-1) on average, indicating that if a proper sampling strategy is employed, bench-scale experiments can be used to represent full-scale composting conditions.

Modeling organic micro pollutant degradation kinetics during sewage sludge composting

Degradation of 13 different organic micro-pollutants in sewage sludge during aerobic composting at 5 different temperatures over a 52 day period was investigated. Adequacy of two kinetic models: a single first order, and a dual first order expression (using an early (first 7 days) and a late-time (last 45 days) degradation coefficient), for describing micro-pollutant degradation, and kinetic constant dependency on composting temperature were evaluated. The results showed that both models provide relatively good descriptions of the degradation process, with the dual first order model being most accurate. The single first order degradation coefficient was 0.025 d(-1) on average across all compounds and temperatures. At early times, degradation was about three times faster than at later times. Average values of the early and late time degradation coefficients for the dual first order model were 0.066 d(-1) and 0.022 d(-1), respectively. On average 30% of the initial micro-pollutant mass present in the compost was degraded rapidly during the early stages of the composting process. Single first order and late time dual first order kinetic constants were strongly dependent on composting temperature with maximum values at temperatures of 35-65°C. In contrast the early time degradation coefficients were relatively independent of composting temperature.

Quantifying measurement uncertainty in full-scale compost piles using organic micro-pollutant concentrations

Reductions in measurement uncertainty for organic micro-pollutant concentrations in full scale compost piles using comprehensive sampling and allowing equilibration time before sampling were quantified. Results showed that both application of a comprehensive sampling procedure (involving sample crushing) and allowing one week of equilibration time before sampling reduces measurement uncertainty by about 50%. Results further showed that for measurements carried out on samples collected using a comprehensive procedure, measurement uncertainty was associated exclusively with the analytic methods applied. Application of statistical analyses confirmed that these results were significant at the 95% confidence level. Overall implications of these results are (1) that it is possible to eliminate uncertainty associated with material inhomogeneity and (2) that in order to reduce uncertainty, sampling procedure is very important early in the composting process but less so later in the process.

Partitioning of nutrients and micropollutants along the sludge treatment line: a case study

A 2-year sampling campaign was conducted in three wastewater treatment plants of various sizes in the Rome area to assess the occurrence of nutrients and micropollutants among primary, secondary and digested sludge. The primary purpose was to evaluate the quality of different sludge types and their suitability for agricultural use. Primary sludge was consistently more polluted than secondary in terms of organic micropollutants, whereas heavy metals partitioned equally among the sludge types. In digested sludge, the heavy metal concentrations were always below limit values proposed for agricultural utilisation. In contrast, organic micropollutants concentrated during anaerobic digestion and affected the quality of the digested sludge. Secondary sludge resulted less polluted and richer in nitrogen and phosphorus (up to three times) than primary sludge and is hence more suitable for agricultural use. Separate processing of primary and secondary sludge might therefore be an innovative option for sludge management that could maximise the possibilities of agricultural use of secondary sludge and limit disposal problems only to primary sludge. In fact, primary sludge could be easily treated and disposed of by conventional processes including thickening, anaerobic digestion, centrifugation and incineration, whereas the difficult digestibility of secondary sludge could be improved by disintegration pre-treatment before stabilisation.

A new procedure of determination of alcohol sulfates and alcohol ethoxysulfates in agricultural soils

The number of analytical methodologies that focus in the determination of alcohol sulfates (AS) and alcohol ethoxysulfates (AES) in terrestrial environment is very limited. In the present work, a new methodology to improve the extraction and determination of AS and AES in agricultural soil samples has been developed. Prior to instrumental analysis, an extraction procedure using pressurized liquid extraction with methanol (PLE) was carried out in order to obtain the highest recoveries and improve sensitivity. The most influential variables affecting the PLE procedure were optimized. Then, the separation and quantification of analytes were performed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The limits of detection (LOD) ranged from 0.03 to 0.08μgg(-1) for AS homologues and in the case of AES ethoxymers from 0.03 to 0.09μgg(-1) for AES-C12Ex and from 0.03 to 0.08μgg(-1) for AES-C14Ex. Matrix-matched calibration was used. Trueness was evaluated by using a spike recovery assay with spiked blank samples, and the recoveries ranged from 98.3% to 101.0% for AS and from 99.9% to 100.1% for AES. The method was satisfactorily applied in a field study designed to evaluate the environmental behavior of these compounds in agricultural soil.

National inventory of alkylphenol ethoxylate compounds in U.S. sewage sludges and chemical fate in outdoor soil mesocosms

We determined the first nationwide inventories of alkylphenol surfactants in U.S. sewage sludges (SS) using samples from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2001 national SS survey. Additionally, analysis of archived 3-year outdoor mesocosm samples served to determine chemical fates in SS-amended soil. Nonylphenol (NP) was the most abundant analyte (534 ± 192 mg/kg) in SS composites, followed by its mono- and di-ethoxylates (62.1 ± 28 and 59.5 ± 52 mg/kg, respectively). The mean annual load of NP and its ethoxylates in SS was estimated at 2408-7149 metric tonnes, of which 1204-4289 is applied on U.S. land. NP compounds showed observable loss from SS/soil mixtures (1:2), with mean half-lives ranging from 301 to 495 days. Surfactant levels in U.S. SS ten-times in excess of European regulations, substantial releases to U.S. soils, and prolonged half-lives found under field conditions, all argue for the U.S. to follow Europe's move from 20 years ago to regulate these chemicals.