Item – Thèses Canada

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Numéro d'OCLC
1019494004
Lien(s) vers le texte intégral
Exemplaire de BAC
Auteur
Larcher, Simone Herta.
Titre
Biological removal of sulfamethoxazole and 17alpha-ethinylestradiol and the impact of ozone on biodegradability, estrogenicity and toxicity.
Diplôme
Ph. D. -- McGill University, 2011
Éditeur
Ottawa : Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, 2013.
Description
1 online resource
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Résumé
<?Pub Inc> The potential development of antibacterial resistance and endocrine disruption has led to increased research investigating the removal of antibiotics like sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and estrogens like 17[alpha]-ethinylestradiol (EE2) during biological wastewater treatment (activated sludge). Lab-scale studies have been carried out by researchers using activated sludge samples and bacterial isolates to investigate the biodegradability of these pharmaceutical compounds with varying and sometimes contradictory results. Both SMX and EE2 can react quickly with ozone (O3) thus the implementation of O 3 as a final disinfection step during wastewater (WW) treatment may also result in the removal and transformation of these pharmaceutical compounds. However, the identification and characteristics of the ozonation by-products formed as a result of this treatment has yet to be fully explored. Ozone has also been predicted to increase WW biodegradability, suggesting its potential as a pre-treatment to activated sludge. The work presented in this thesis proposes an innovative way to evaluate changes in biodegradability and investigate the potential impact of transformation products. The use of controlled mixtures of pure bacterial cultures to model the biodegradation of SMX and EE2 at lab-scale was studied. This approach ensures a consistent microbial population that can be precisely repeated throughout a set of experiments, allowing the direct comparison of results, which is not possible using activated sludge samples due to their variable composition. The results showed that specific individual bacteria ('R. equi' and 'R. rhodocrous') were capable of successfully degrading SMX and EE2, however when they were combined with other bacteria to form mixtures there were no additive or synergistic effects observed. Using the controlled bacterial mixtures to model the biodegradation of SMX and EE2 separately, we were able to investigate the effects of the addition of an excess carbon source as well as ozone pre-treatment on the biodegradability of these compounds. The results demonstrated that there were no overall trends of co-metabolism of either compound with the excess carbon source and that slight differences in the bacterial composition of the mixture used (±1 to 2 bacterial strains) can alter the degradation trends observed (i.e. rate of compound removal). In general, ozonation increased the biodegradation of SMX by the bacterial mixtures; however the removal of EE2 was decreased. This was explained by the formation of an ozonation by-product that was preferentially biodegraded over EE2. We also investigated the ozone by-products formed after the complete disappearance of EE2. Two of these by-products were identified as open phenolic ring structures, suggesting a decrease in estrogenic activity. Using the YES assay these by-products were determined to be significantly less estrogenic than EE2, however they were observed to be more toxic to male fetal rats (15.5. days post-conception) demonstrating a greater negative impact on testosterone secretion. This emphasizes that a better understanding of emerging treatments such as ozonation is necessary before applying them in water treatment since the by-products may exhibit a greater toxic effect than the untreated parent compound.
ISBN
9780494786567
0494786566
9780494786567