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Determination of organic pollutants in land applied municipal wastewater sludges by toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) and extraction procedure toxicity test (EP)
Author(s) -
Dietrich Andrea M.,
Chesnutt Sheryl A.,
Stone Lori A.,
Gallagher Daniel L.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
water environment research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1554-7531
pISSN - 1061-4303
DOI - 10.2175/wer.65.5.2
Subject(s) - toxicity characteristic leaching procedure , pollutant , leaching (pedology) , extraction (chemistry) , wastewater , chemistry , environmental chemistry , sewage treatment , waste management , pulp and paper industry , environmental science , environmental engineering , chromatography , heavy metals , soil water , organic chemistry , soil science , engineering
Triplicate wastewater sludge samples, from three small municipal facilities that received no industrial inputs, were analyzed by the Extraction Procedure Toxicity Test (EP) and Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP). These tests evaluate the potential for organic and inorganic chemicals to leach from the sludge. Six surrogate chemicals were spiked into the sludges to monitor recoveries of specific chemicals by the two procedures. The recoveries for the surrogate chemical spiked into the sludges were low (0.1‐33%) and variable for both tests. EP and TCLP tests performed similarly in that both tests yielded highly variable results in terms of the number of chemicals and the concentrations detected in the replicate samples. Only four organic pollutants ( p ‐cresol, dichlorodimethoxybenzene, dimethylpentanol, and tetramethylbutylphenol), at microgram per kilogram concentrations, were identified in the sludge samples. Based on this research, few organic pollutants appear to be leached from municipal‐only wastewater sludges.