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Toxicological assessment of hospital wastewater in different treatment processes

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Abstract

This study surveyed the hospital wastewater characters focusing on antibiotic contamination in seven hospitals in Bangkok. It detected 19 antibiotics of which the high-frequent detection were quinolones such as ofloxacin + levofloxacin, norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin including sulfamethoxazole. Norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin appeared the highest concentrations of 12.11 and 9.60 μg/L, respectively. Most antibiotic concentrations in the wastewaters of the studied hospitals gave a good correlation (r 2 = 0.77–0.99) to the amount of usage. In this study, batch acute toxicity tests were performed to assess the toxicity of hospital wastewater on mixed liquor, freshwater algae (Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus quadricauda), and microcrustacean (Moina macrocopa). The hospital wastewaters could inhibit the mixed liquor growth and gave similar toxic levels among test species: algae and microcrustacean (9.81–13.63 and 2.62–3.09 TU, respectively). The conventional activated sludge (CAS) and rotating biological contactor (RBC) could remove fluoroquinolones and tetracycline via biomass adsorption. After treatment, most of treatment could reduce the toxicity. Nevertheless, the effluent gave slight toxicity on some test species which might be caused from chlorination and a common toxicant (NH3-N).

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by the ASEAN University Network/Southeast Asia Engineering Education Development Network (AUN/SEED-Net) and Kasetsart University Research and Development (KURDI) grant no. S-K 4.56.

Compliance with ethical standards

The authors of this manuscript would like to declare the following statements in compliance with ethical standards required by the journal:

This manuscript was developed based on our original research work as a single piece of work, and it has not been submitted to other journals for publication simultaneously.

The manuscript has not been published previously.

All co-authors of this manuscript have contributed to this work and agreed to the submission of this manuscript for publication in Environmental Science and Pollution Research Journal.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University, 50 Ngamwongwan Rd., Chatuchak, Bangkok, 10900, Thailand

    Nutta Sangnarin Hamjinda, Wilai Chiemchaisri & Chart Chiemchaisri

  2. Department of Food, Life and Environmental Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Yamagata University, 1-23 Wakaba-machi, Tsuruoka, Yamagata, 997-8555, Japan

    Toru Watanabe

  3. Research Center for Sustainable Energy and Technology (RSET), Institute of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan

    Ryo Honda

Authors
  1. Nutta Sangnarin Hamjinda
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  2. Wilai Chiemchaisri
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  3. Toru Watanabe
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  4. Ryo Honda
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  5. Chart Chiemchaisri
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Correspondence to Wilai Chiemchaisri.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Hamjinda, N.S., Chiemchaisri, W., Watanabe, T. et al. Toxicological assessment of hospital wastewater in different treatment processes. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 7271–7279 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4812-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4812-0

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