Determination and Source Apportionment of Five Classes of Steroid Hormones in Urban Rivers

Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2009 papers

Abstract

We developed an original analytical method for monitoring five estrogens, nine androgens, nine progestogens, six glucocorticoids, and one mineralocorticoid in one water sample using liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry, and then 45 river, 13 discharging sites, and 4 composite effluent samples were analyzed to reveal their occurrence and sources in urban rivers. Of the 45 river samples, androgens were the dominant steroids detected (total concentrations up to 480 ng/L), followed by glucocorticoids (up to 52 ng/L), progestogens (up to 50 ng/L, and estrogens (up to 9.8 ng/L). The summed concentration for each class of detected hormones in 13 discharging site samples was higher than that in river samples, up to 1887 ng/L for androgens, 390 ng/L for glucocorticoids, 75 ng/L for progestogens, and 25 ng/L for estrogens. A principal component analyses with multiple linear regression based on the profiles of all target compounds was applied to identify the source apportionment and to predict the contribution from different sources. It was found that 62.7% of the mean summed hormones were contributed by freshly discharged untreated sewage, 29.4% by treated sewage and/or naturally attenuated untreated sewage, and 7.9% by an unknown source, possibly pharmaceutical manufacturing plants.

Related Papers

• → Naturally produced steroid hormones and their release into the environment(2003)254 cited
• → Trace levels of sewage effluent are sufficient to increase class 1 integron prevalence in freshwater biofilms without changing the core community(2016)39 cited
• → An evaluation of two bacteriophages as sewage tracers(1987)12 cited
• → Egyptian Effluent Standards for Treated Sewage: Evaluation and Recommendations(2008)3 cited
• Effect of Tannery Complex Effluents on the Composition of Raw Sewage Water for Irigation of Crops(2001)