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Toxics
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Fate and Impacts of Nanomaterials in Waste Water Treatment Plants...
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Fate and Impacts of Nanomaterials in Waste Water Treatment Plants and Effluents

A special issue of Toxics (ISSN 2305-6304). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2020) | Viewed by 2261

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andrew M. Booth

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Guest Editor
Department of Climate and Environment, SINTEF Ocean, Brattørkaia 17C, 7010 Trondheim, Norway
Interests: microplastic; nanoplastic; environmental fate; UV degradation; mechanical degradation; biodegradation; ecotoxicity; analytical chemistry; particle characterisation; chemical leaching; bioavailability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Claire Coutris

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Guest Editor
Department of Bioresources and Recycling Technologies, Division of Environment and Natural Resources, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Høgskoleveien 7, 1433 Ås, Norway
Interests: fate of organic contaminants, metals/metallic nanomaterials and synthetic polymers in organic waste resources and soils
Dr. Julia Farkas

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Guest Editor
Department of Environment and New Recources, SINTEF Ocean, Brattørkaia 17C, 7010 Trondheim, Norway
Interests: marine ecotoxiology; occurence, fate, and effects of pollutants, including manufactured (metal) nanomaterials in the environment
Dr. Ailbhe Macken

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Guest Editor
Norsk Institutt for Vannforskning/Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Marine Biogeochemistry and Oceanography, Gaustadalléen 21, NO-0349 OSLO, Norway
Interests: marine biological effect monitoring and the application of effects directed analysis and toxicity identification evaluation in marine/freshwater and sediment; development and use of in vivo and in vitro bioassays; nano and regulatory ecotoxicology (GLP) and risk assessment; invertebrate and aquatic regulatory ecotoxicity testing, including hazard assessment of environmental mixtures and single substances in marine and freshwater systems
Dr. Anastasia Georgantzopoulou

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Guest Editor
Norsk Institutt for Vannforskning/Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Ecotoxicology and Risk Assessment, Gaustadalléen 21, NO-0349 OSLO, Norway
Interests: behavior and transformation of nanomaterials in complex and environmentally relevant matrices; development and application of novel in vitro cell-based methods for hazard identification and elucidation of mechanisms of action; interaction of particular contaminants and contaminants of emerging concern with cellular membranes and marine and freshwater organisms, immune responses, and mechanisms of defence

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Particulate materials are increasingly acknowledged as a key source of environmental contamination. This class of pollutants represents an extremely diverse mixture of particles with a broad range of physical (size, shape, surface morphology) and chemical properties, including particle-associated chemicals. As a focal point for many waste streams, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are a critical step in the transport and fate of particulate pollutants, often representing the final opportunity to prevent emissions to the natural environment. Globally, WWTPs range from simple to highly sophisticated, but all of them have the purpose of removing anthropogenic pollutants from aqueous waste streams. Existing WWTPs are effective at removing particulates in the micron-size range and larger. However, their ability to retain particles in the nanoscale and the fate and impact of nano-sized materials in WWTPs is less understood.

This Special Edition of Toxics focuses on the fate and transformation of nanomaterials (including nanoplastic) in WWTPs and impacts of released nanomaterials in relevant environmental compartments. Manuscripts are invited that address topics related to the detection (identification and quantification) of nano-sized particulates in WWTPs, diurnal and seasonal variations in fluxes, retention efficiency, interaction with other particulates, the role of dissolved organics, fate and transformation processes, the impacts of nano-sized particles on WWTP functioning, and the impacts of WWTP-transformed nanomaterials in terrestrial and aquatic environments.

Dr. Andrew Booth
Dr. Claire Coutris
Dr. Julia Farkas
Dr. Ailbhe Macken
Dr. Anastasia Georgantzopoulou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Nanomaterials
  • Wastewater treatment plants
  • Aggregation
  • Dissolution
  • Surface chemistry
  • Ecocorona
  • Toxicity
  • Terrestrial
  • Aquatic
  • Effluents

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 2517 KiB  
Article
Microbial Population Dynamics in Model Sewage Treatment Plants and the Fate and Effect of Gold Nanoparticles
by Karsten Schlich, Cecilia Díaz, Benjamin Gomez Pizarro, Burkhard Knopf, Ruben Schlinkert, Franziska Frederike Wege, Anne Jurack and Kerstin Hund-Rinke
Toxics 2021, 9(3), 54; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/toxics9030054 - 10 Mar 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1981
Abstract
Adequate functioning of a sewage treatment plant (STP) is essential to protect the downstream aquatic environment (ECHA 2017), and information on the degradability of chemicals and their toxicity to activated sludge microorganisms is required. An environmental realistic higher tier test is a STP [...] Read more.
Adequate functioning of a sewage treatment plant (STP) is essential to protect the downstream aquatic environment (ECHA 2017), and information on the degradability of chemicals and their toxicity to activated sludge microorganisms is required. An environmental realistic higher tier test is a STP simulation test as described in OECD 303A (2001) which for nanoparticles can also be used to study their sorption behavior to activated sludge. However, information is limited on the influence of synthetic sewage on the microbial community of the activated sludge. A modified community can result in modifications of the sludge floccules affecting the sorption behavior. The main objective of our study was to show whether a representative microbial diversity remains under standardized test conditions as described in OECD 303A (2001) using synthetic sewage as influent. Furthermore, we investigated whether just considering the functional properties of a STP (elimination of dissolved organic carbon; nitrification), is sufficient for an assessment of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) or whether the influence on microbial diversity also needs to be considered. AuNPs were used as a case study due to their rising medical applications and therefore increasing probability to reach the sewer and STP. The results can provide significant input for the interpretation of results from the regulatory point of view. To deliver these objectives, the general changes of the microbial population in activated sludge and its influence on the degradation activity (dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and inorganic nitrogen) using freshly collected sludge from the municipal STP in an artificial test system as a model STP in accordance with OECD 303A (2001) were assessed. Additionally, we evaluated the potential impact of AuNPs and its dispersant on the microbial composition and the overall impact on the function of the STP in terms of DOC degradation and nitrogen removal to observe if an assessment based on functional properties is sufficient. The bacteria composition in our study, evaluated at a class level, revealed commonly described environmental bacteria. Proteobacteria (β, α, δ) accounted for more than 50% but also nitrifying bacteria as Nitrospira were present. Our results show that mainly within the first 7 days of an acclimatization phase by addition of synthetic sewage, the bacterial community changed. Even though AuNPs can have antibacterial properties, no adverse effects on the function and structure of the microorganisms in the STP could be detected at concentrations of increased modeled PEC values by a factor of about 10,000. Complementary to other metallic nanomaterials, gold nanomaterials also sorb to a large extent to the activated sludge. If activated sludge is used as fertilizer on agricultural land, gold nanoparticles can be introduced into soils. In this case, the effect on soil (micro)organisms must be investigated more closely, also taking into account the structural diversity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fate and Impacts of Nanomaterials in Waste Water Treatment Plants and Effluents)
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