A toxicity monitoring study on identification and reduction of toxicants from a wastewater treatment plant

In this study, toxicity of effluents in a wastewater treatment plant and of receiving water in an adjacent stream was periodically monitored from November 2007 to June 2008, in order to trace and reduce sources of toxicants. The results showed that toxicity of final effluent (FE) changed greatly over different sampling events, and appeared to have impacts on toxicity of downstream water with a significant correlation (r2=0.87, p<0.05). In particular, FE toxicity was always higher than that of secondary effluent (SE). Toxicity identification evaluation (TIE) for the FE sample collected in March 2008 showed that FE toxicity was attributed to low quality of Fenton reagent with Zn contamination used for SE treatment. Furthermore, Zn concentrations in FE samples significantly correlated with FE toxicity during the sampling period (r2=0.95, p<0.05). After changing the Fenton reagent to one containing low Zn, Zn concentration and toxicity of FE greatly decreased in the following months.