Occurrence of Nonylphenol, Nonylphenol Ethoxylate Surfactants and Nonylphenol Carboxylic Acids in Wastewater in Japan

Nonylphenol (NP) is known to be byproduct of nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPnEO) which are used as detergent in industries. It is important that not only NP but also NPnEO and their related substances are analyzed when behavior of NP in wastewater treatment process is surveyed. NPnEO are biodegraded to shorter ethoxylate (EO) chain NPnEO or nonylphenol carboxylates (NPnEC) under aerobic condition, and then biodegraded to NP under anaerobic condition. NP is one of the suspected endocrine disruptors (EDs). Moreover, shorter EO chain NPnEO has greater toxicity than longer EO chain NPnEO. We conducted a field survey of NP and its related substances in 20 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The concentrations (median) of NP and its related substances in the WWTPs influent ranged from 0.1 to 8.3 μg/l, showing NP concentration as the same level as those previously reported. The reduction of the long EO chain NPnEO in the WWTPs was almost complete, while the removal efficiency for the short EO chain NPnEO was less significant than the long EO chain NPnEO, suggesting that the degradation rate of the short EO chain NPnEO was smaller than that of the long EO chain NPnEO in the wastewater treatment processes.