Gheorghe Maria,  Mihaela-Ramona Tudora,Cristina Maria<br>Long-term Pollutant Fate of Some PAHs and Other Persistent Organic Pollutants <br>in Riverbeds for a Quasi-continuous Release of Low-level

Gheorghe Maria, Mihaela-Ramona Tudora,Cristina Maria
Long-term Pollutant Fate of Some PAHs and Other Persistent Organic Pollutants
in Riverbeds for a Quasi-continuous Release of Low-level

Abstract:

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) are a class of stable pollutants difficult to be removed from wastewaters and environment by classical methods. Among them, the Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH), PolyChlorinated Biphenyls (PCB) and PolyChlorinated Benzenes (CBz) are very toxic compounds, presenting a low volatility, biodegradability, and solubility in water. Their high bioaccumulation capacity in the aquatic environment sharply increases with the number of carbon, chlorine atoms, and aromatic rings in the molecule. Such characteristics may lead to an incomplete removal in the wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), their level in effluents being frequently close and sometimes slightly overstepping the admissible limits. By using a dynamic 2D advective-dispersive model with accounting for pollutant inter-phase transport among water, biota, sediment, and air, the paper proves by means of simulated scenarios how such a low level but quasi-continuous release can turn into a serious river pollution problem. A case study exemplifies this comparative analysis of the pollutant fate for some PAHs, PCBs, and CBz-s, by indicating conditions that may lead to the pollutant dangerous accumulation in the riverbed. Model predictions also prove that frequent POP releases around the regulation limits can become dangerous on a long term due to the migration of the pollution front downstream the river as soon as the aquatic phase equilibrium is reached in the discharge section. The risk assessment also points out the importance of considering in the model all the pollutant properties (e.g. volatility and biodegradability) besides the bioaccumulation terms related to the high lg(BCF) and lg(Kws) indices, thus highlighting fate similarities among POPs. Keywords: POP, PAH, PCB, chlorinated benzenes, river pollution, dispersion, bioaccumulation

Issue: 2011, Volume 62, Issue 5

Pages:

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This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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