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Do we underestimate the concentration of estriol in raw municipal wastewater?

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Abstract

The main source of natural estrogens to municipal wastewater is human excretions via urine or feces, thus their concentrations in raw wastewater should show positive linear relationship with their human excretions. This study mainly focused on their concentration relationship in raw wastewater. Based on comparison between chemical analyses and predictions through human excretion rates, the observed concentrations of estriol (E 3) in municipal wastewater were found to be noticeably lower than the predicted values. The main cause for the disparity is that substantial conjugated E 3 also exists in raw wastewater. This work suggested that monitoring both E 3 and its conjugates is necessary to get more accurate E 3 removal performance of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).

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Acknowledgment

This work was financially supported by The Key Program of National Natural Science of China (No. 41330639), the Program for National Science Foundation of China (No. 21107025) as well as the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014ZM0073).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Ze-hua Liu, Gui-ning Lu, Hua Yin & Zhi Dang

  2. Key Lab Pollution Control & Ecosystem Restoration in Industry Cluster, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, 510006, Guangdong, China

    Ze-hua Liu, Gui-ning Lu, Hua Yin & Zhi Dang

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  1. Ze-hua Liu
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  2. Gui-ning Lu
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  3. Hua Yin
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  4. Zhi Dang
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Correspondence to Ze-hua Liu.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Liu, Zh., Lu, Gn., Yin, H. et al. Do we underestimate the concentration of estriol in raw municipal wastewater?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 4753–4758 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3981-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3981-6

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