Occurrence and removal of emerging pharmaceutical, personal care compounds and caffeine tracer in municipal sewage treatment plant in Western Greece

A fourteen-month monitoring period (April 2007May 2008) was realized to investigate the removal and occurrence of eight pharmaceutical and personal care compounds, two metabolites and caffeine across the municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of Agrinio city, located in Western Greece as well as in the discharging sampling point in Acheloos River, which receives the effluents of the plant. Solid-phase extraction (SPE) was used for the isolation and pre-concentration of the target pollutants and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) for their detection and quantification. All the selected compounds were detected in the wastewater samples. The concentrations determined in the influent of the municipal WWTP ranged between 65.3 and 6679ng L-1 recorded for triclosan and caffeine respectively, while in the effluent ranged between 24.9 and 552ng L-1 observed for triclosan and carbamazepine, respectively. The detected concentration levels in Acheloos River ranged from 37.6ng L-1 for caffeine to 305ng L-1 for paracetamol. Mean total removal efficiencies ranged between 46.3% for carbamazepine and 96.8% for naproxen. The results of this study demonstrate that most of the compounds are being reduced in low levels by municipal wastewater treatment processes but quite significant levels of pharmaceuticals enter river waterways.