TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling the pH-mediated extraction of ionizable organic contaminants to improve the quality of municipal sewage sludge destined for land application
AU - Venkatesan, Arjun K.
AU - Halden, Rolf
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was supported in part by Award Numbers R01ES015445 and R01ES020889 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) . It further was supported by the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust by award number LTR 05/01/12 . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIEHS or the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Funding Information:
This project was supported in part by Award Numbers R01ES015445 and R01ES020889 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). It further was supported by the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust by award number LTR 05/01/12. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIEHS or the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V..
PY - 2016/4/15
Y1 - 2016/4/15
N2 - A model was developed to assess the impact of adding acids and bases to processed municipal sewage sludge (MSS) to mobilize contaminants, facilitating their removal from sludge by flushing prior to land application. Among 312 organic contaminants documented to occur in U.S. MSS, 71 or 23% were identified as ionizable organic contaminants (IOCs), contributing a disproportionately large fraction of 82% of the total mass of sludge-borne contaminants. Detected IOCs included 57 pharmaceuticals and personal care products, 12 perfluorinated compounds, one surfactant and one pesticide. Annually, about 2000 t of IOCs were estimated to be released to U.S. soils via land-application of MSS. A partitioning model developed to assess the impact of pH on hydrophobic sorption revealed that between 36 and 85% of the mass of individual classes of IOCs potentially could be desorbed from MSS via pH adjustment and flushing. Thus, modeling results suggest that a sequential pH treatment [acidic (~ pH 2) followed by basic (~pH 12) treatment] has the potential to reduce the burden of harmful IOCs in MSS applied on U.S. land by up to 40 ± 16 t annually. This approach may serve as a cost-effective treatment process that can be implemented easily in existing sludge treatment infrastructure in the U.S. and worldwide, serving to significantly improve the quality of MSS destined for land application.
AB - A model was developed to assess the impact of adding acids and bases to processed municipal sewage sludge (MSS) to mobilize contaminants, facilitating their removal from sludge by flushing prior to land application. Among 312 organic contaminants documented to occur in U.S. MSS, 71 or 23% were identified as ionizable organic contaminants (IOCs), contributing a disproportionately large fraction of 82% of the total mass of sludge-borne contaminants. Detected IOCs included 57 pharmaceuticals and personal care products, 12 perfluorinated compounds, one surfactant and one pesticide. Annually, about 2000 t of IOCs were estimated to be released to U.S. soils via land-application of MSS. A partitioning model developed to assess the impact of pH on hydrophobic sorption revealed that between 36 and 85% of the mass of individual classes of IOCs potentially could be desorbed from MSS via pH adjustment and flushing. Thus, modeling results suggest that a sequential pH treatment [acidic (~ pH 2) followed by basic (~pH 12) treatment] has the potential to reduce the burden of harmful IOCs in MSS applied on U.S. land by up to 40 ± 16 t annually. This approach may serve as a cost-effective treatment process that can be implemented easily in existing sludge treatment infrastructure in the U.S. and worldwide, serving to significantly improve the quality of MSS destined for land application.
KW - Biosolids
KW - Ionizable compounds
KW - Partitioning model
KW - Sewage sludge
KW - Sludge treatment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84957558614&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84957558614&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.01.119
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.01.119
M3 - Article
C2 - 26849337
AN - SCOPUS:84957558614
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 550
SP - 736
EP - 741
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -