Review on the occurrence, fate and removal of perfluorinated compounds during wastewater treatment
Abstract
Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) consist of a fully fluorinated hydrophobic alkyl chain attached to a hydrophilic end group. Due to their wide use in several industrial and household applications, they have been detected in numerous Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) during the last ten years. The present review reports the occurrence of 22 PFCs (C4-C14, C16, C18 carboxylates; C4-C8 and C10 sulfonates; 3 sulfonamides) in municipal or/and industrial wastewater, originating from 24 monitoring studies. PFCs levels in sewage sludge have also been reported using data from 12 studies. Most of the above monitoring data originate from the USA, North Europe and Asia and concern perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), while limited information is available from Mediterranean area, Canada and Australia. PFCs concentrations range up to some hundreds ng/L and some thousands ng/g dry weight in raw wastewater and sludge, respectively. They are not significantly removed during secondary biological treatment, while their concentrations in treated wastewater are often higher compared to raw sewage. Their biodegradation during wastewater treatment does not seem possible; whereas some recent studies have noted the potential transformation of precursor compounds to PFCs during biological wastewater treatment. PFCs sorption onto sludge has been studied in depth and seems to be an important mechanism governing their removal in STPs. Concerning tertiary treatment technologies, significant PFCs removal has been observed using activated carbon, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis or applying advanced oxidation and reduction processes. Most of these studies have been conducted using pure water, while in many cases the experiments have been performed under extreme laboratory conditions (high concentrations, high radiation source, temperature or pressure). Future efforts should be focused on better understanding of biotransformation processes occurred in aerobic and anaerobic bioreactors and result to PFCs formation and on the application of advanced treatment technologies under conditions commonly found in STPs.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Increased concentrations of PFAS in effluent have been reported in most WWTPs worldwide and are mainly attributed to biotransformation of PFAS precursors in WWTPs applying biological treatments.
“The increased concentrations of PFAS concentrations in ef fl uent have been already reported in most WWTPs worldwide and it is mainly attributed to biotransformation of PFAS precursors in WWTPs applying biological treatments, which determine an increase of concentrations of PFAS (Arvaniti and Stasinakis, 2015).”
From Occurrence of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances in wastewater treatment plants in Northern Italy (2023) · cites this paper as Arvaniti and Stasinakis, 2015
The absence of increased PFAS concentration in February could be attributed to the lower temperature (14 °C) of the wastewater that does not promote the degradation of longer chain PFAS to shorter chain PFAS.
“this could be attributed to the lower temperature (14 °C) of the wastewater that does not promote the degradation of longer chain PFAS to shorter chain PFAS (Arvaniti and Stasinakis, 2015; Thompson et al., 2022).”
From Occurrence of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances in wastewater treatment plants in Northern Italy (2023) · cites this paper as Arvaniti and Stasinakis, 2015
Environmental samples with higher percentages of PFCAs have been attributed to sources including fluoropolymer manufacturing, landfills, and WWTP effluent.
“As discussed, environmental samples with higher percentages of PFCAs have been attributed to sources including fluoropolymer manufacturing, landfills, and WWTP effluent (Ahrens et al. 2009; Arvaniti and Stasinakis 2015; Bach et al. 2017; Dauchy et al. 2012; Houtz et al. 2016; Oliaei et al. 2013; Weber et al. 2017), which all have relevance to surface water scenarios.”
From Evaluation of a national data set for insights into sources, composition, and concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in U.S. drinking water (2018) · cites this paper as Arvaniti and Stasinakis 2015
In some studies, concentrations of PFCAs and PFSAs have increased from influent to final effluent.
“In some studies, concentrations of compounds such as perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCA) and perfluorosulfonic acids (PFSA) have increased from influent to final effluent [11, 27, 31].”
From An investigation into per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in nineteen Australian wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
Increased partitioning of PFAS to the solid phase within WWTPs has been associated with increasing fluoroalkyl chain length.
“The increased partitioning of PFAS to the solid phase within WWTPs has been associated with increasing fluoroalkyl chain length [11, 51, 55].”
From An investigation into per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in nineteen Australian wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
PFAS have been detected in WWTP influent, effluent and solids worldwide.
“PFAS have been detected in WWTP influent, effluent and solids worldwide [11].”
From An investigation into per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in nineteen Australian wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
Most PFAS are recalcitrant through conventional water treatment processes, and therefore wastewater effluents can contain PFAS originating from domestic and industrial sources.
“Most PFAS are recalcitrant through conventional water treatment processes and, therefore, wastewater effluents can contain PFAS that has originated from domestic and industrial sources [11, 12].”
From An investigation into per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in nineteen Australian wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 93 · Cited by 422
- Authors
- Arvaniti, O. S., & Stasinakis, A. S.
- Affiliations
- University of the Aegean (GR)
- Corresponding author
- Stasinakis, Athanasios S.
- Venue
- Science of The Total Environment
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-08
- Volume
- 524-525
- Pages
- 81-92
- ISSN
- 0048-9697 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2046177604
- Cited by
- 422
- References
- 93
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 39 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 2.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Science of The Total Environment (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- European Union (European Social Fund — ESF) and Greek National Funds (MIS 376736)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances research
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Advanced oxidation water treatment
- Keywords
- perfluorinated compounds, perfluorooctanoic acid, PFOS, wastewater treatment plants, municipal wastewater, industrial wastewater, sewage sludge, biological treatment, biotransformation, advanced oxidation processes, nanofiltration, activated carbon, reverse osmosis
- MeSH terms
- Asia, Australia, Canada, Environmental Monitoring, Europe, Waste Disposal, Fluid, Water Pollutants, Chemical, Water Pollution, Chemical, Wastewater
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
