Comparison of wastewater treatment processes on the removal efficiency of organophosphate esters

Organophosphate esters (OPs), widely used as flame retardants and plasticizers, are regarded as a class of emerging pollutants. The effluent of municipal wastewater treatment plants is generally considered to be the main contributor of OP pollution to the surface water. In this study, anoxic–oxic (AO) and University of Capetown (UCT) processes were selected to investigate the removal efficiency of OPs. The results indicated that the UCT process showed better removal efficiency than that of the AO process. For the chlorinated OPs, approximately 12.3% of tri(2-chloroethyl)phosphate and 11.8% of tri(chloropropyl)phosphate can be removed in the UCT process, which was 12% and 7.8% higher than that of the AO process. In contrast, non-chlorinated OPs, including tris(2-butoxyethyal)phosphate, triphenyl phosphate, and tributyl phosphate, were able to be removed in both processes, with the removal rate of 85.1%, 74.9%, and 29.1% in the AO process, and 88.4%, 63.6%, and 25.2% in the UCT process. Furthermore, linear correlation between the removal rate and logKow of OPs (r2 = 0.539) was observed in the AO process, indicating that OPs with high Kow value (e.g. tri(dichloropropyl)phosphate and triphenyl phosphate) are prone to be removed by adsorption on the residual activated sludge.