The DOI matches its Crossref record; 10 of the 10 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The fate of microplastics in an Italian Wastewater Treatment Plant
Open accessAbstract
The emerged threat of microplastics (MPs) in aquatic ecosystems is posing a new challenges in environmental management, in particular the civil Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) which can act both as collectors of MPs from anthropic use and as a source to natural environments. In this study, MP fate was investigated in one of the biggest WWTPs of Northern Italy, built at the beginning of the 2000s and which serves a population equivalent of about 1,200,000, by evaluating their presence at the inlet (IN), the removal efficiency after the settler (SET) and at the outlet (OUT), and their transfer to sludge. Samples were collected in three days of a week and plastic debris was characterized in terms of shape, size and polymer composition using the Fourier Transform Infrared Microscope System (μFT-IR). The number of detected MPs was 2.5 ± 0.3 MPs/L in the IN, 0.9 ± 0.3 MPs/L after the SET and 0.4 ± 0.1 MPs/L in the OUT, indicating a total removal efficiency of 84%. However, considering that this WWTP treats about 400,000,000 L wastewaters/day, the potential release of MPs to the receiving aquatic system would be approximately 160,000,000 MPs/day, mainly polyesters (35%) and polyamide (17%). Furthermore, a great amount of MPs removed from wastewater was detected in the recycled activated sludge, with 113 ± 57 MPs/g sludge dry weight, corresponding to about 3,400,000,000 MPs deposited in the 30 tons of sludge daily produced by this WWTP. Given the possible re-use of WWTP sludge in fertilizers for agriculture, our results highlight that WWTPs could represent a potential source of MPs also to agroecosystems.
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Cites
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Self-citationPlastics and microplastics in the oceans: From emerging pollutants to emerged threat
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Cited by
Liu, W., Zhang, J., Liu, H., Guo, X., Zhang, X., Yao, X., Cao, Z., & Zhang, T. (2021) · Environment International · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2020.106277 · Cited by 688
Veerasingam, S., Ranjani, M., Venkatachalapathy, R., Bagaev, A., Mukhanov, V., Litvinyuk, D., Mugilarasan, M., Gurumoorthi, K., Guganathan, L., Aboobacker, V. M., et al. (2021) · Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology · doi:10.1080/10643389.2020.1807450 · Cited by 561
Removal of microplastics from aqueous solutions by magnetic carbon nanotubes
Tang, Y., Zhang, S., Su, Y., Wu, D., Zhao, Y., & Xie, B. (2021) · Chemical Engineering Journal · doi:10.1016/j.cej.2020.126804 · Cited by 533
Environmental fate and impacts of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems: A review
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Harley-Nyang, D., Memon, F. A., Jones, N., & Galloway, T. (2022) · Science of The Total Environment · doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153735 · Cited by 192
Metadata
- Authors
- Magni, S., Binelli, A., Pittura, L., Avio, C. G., Della Torre, C., Parenti, C. C., Gorbi, S., & Regoli, F.
- Venue
- Science of The Total Environment
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-02
- Volume
- 652
- Pages
- 602-610
- ISSN
- 0048-9697 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2896090952
- Cited by
- 647
- References
- 10
- FWCI
- 15.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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