CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 170Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental ImpactsWater Treatment and DisinfectionAdvanced oxidation water treatment

Performance of conventional multi-barrier drinking water treatment plants for the removal of four artificial sweeteners

Scheurer, Marco, Storck, Florian R., Brauch, Heinz-J., Lange, Frank T.·2010·Water Research
DOI 10.1016/j.watres.2010.04.005
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Due to incomplete removal of artificial sweeteners in wastewater treatment plants some of these compounds end up in receiving surface waters, which are used for drinking water production. The sum of removal efficiency of single treatment steps in multi-barrier treatment systems affects the concentrations of these compounds in the provided drinking water. This is the first systematic study revealing the effectiveness of single treatment steps in laboratory experiments and in waterworks. Six full-scale waterworks using surface water influenced raw water were sampled up to ten times to study the fate of acesulfame, saccharin, cyclamate and sucralose. For the most important treatment technologies the results were confirmed by laboratory batch experiments. Saccharin and cyclamate proved to play a minor role for drinking water treatment plants as they were eliminated by nearly 100% in all waterworks with biologically active treatment units like river bank filtration (RBF) or artificial groundwater recharge. Acesulfame and sucralose were not biodegraded during RBF and their suitability as wastewater tracers under aerobic conditions was confirmed. Sucralose proved to be persistent against ozone and its transformation was < 20% in lab and field investigations. Remaining traces were completely removed by subsequent granular activated carbon (GAC) filters. Acesulfame readily reacts with ozone (pseudo first-order rate constant k = 1.3 x 10(-3) s(-1) at 1 mg L(-1) ozone concentration). However, the applied ozone concentrations and contact times under typical waterworks conditions only led to an incomplete removal (18-60%) in the ozonation step. Acesulfame was efficiently removed by subsequent GAC filters with a low throughput of less than 30 m(3) kg(-1), but removal strongly depended on the GAC preload. Thus, acesulfame was detected up to 0.76 microg L(-1) in finished water.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.watres.2010.04.005

Cites

30 of 30 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

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?

  • The maximum acesulfame concentration in this study is higher than those reported in two other studies of raw drinking water from groundwater (2600 ng/L) and surface water (4200 ng/L) and in a study of treated tap water (1600 ng/L).

    “Our maximum concentration is higher than those reported in two other studies of raw drinking water from groundwater (2600 ng/L; Buerge et al., 2009) and surface water (4200 ng/L; Scheurer et al., 2010) sources (Table 2) and in a study of treated tap water (1600 ng/L; Spoelstra et al., 2013).”

    From Septic systems as sources of organic wastewater compounds in domestic drinking water wells in a shallow sand and gravel aquifer (2016) · cites this paper as Scheurer et al., 2010

  • Cyclamate and saccharin showed ≥90% removal in wastewater treatment plants, in a septic system plume, and during riverbank filtration and artificial groundwater recharge.

    “whereas two other artificial sweeteners, cyclamate and saccharin, showed ≥ 90% removal in wastewater treatment plants (Buerge et al., 2009), in a septic system plume (Robertson et al., 2013), and during riverbank filtration and artificial groundwater recharge (Scheurer et al., 2010).”

    From Septic systems as sources of organic wastewater compounds in domestic drinking water wells in a shallow sand and gravel aquifer (2016) · cites this paper as Scheurer et al., 2010

  • Acesulfame and sucralose underwent negligible removal during wastewater treatment and groundwater transport.

    “Acesulfame and another artificial sweetener, sucralose, underwent negligible removal during wastewater treatment and groundwater transport, whereas two other artificial sweeteners, cyclamate and saccharin, showed ≥ 90% removal in wastewater treatment plants (Buerge et al., 2009), in a septic system plume (Robertson et al., 2013), and during riverbank filtration and artificial groundwater recharge”

    From Septic systems as sources of organic wastewater compounds in domestic drinking water wells in a shallow sand and gravel aquifer (2016) · cites this paper as Scheurer et al., 2010

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Scheurer, M., Storck, F. R., Brauch, H.-J., & Lange, F. T.
Corresponding author
Lange, Frank T.
ORCID
Venue
Water Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2010-06
Volume
44
Issue
12
Pages
3573-3584
ISSN
0043-1354 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.watres.2010.04.005
OpenAlex
W1981786248
Cited by
170
References
30
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 11
FWCI
9.45
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Water Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Multilingual Matters (Channel View Publications) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Water Treatment and Disinfection
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Advanced oxidation water treatment
Keywords
artificial sweeteners, acesulfame, saccharin, cyclamate, sucralose, drinking water treatment, riverbank filtration, managed aquifer recharge, ozonation, granular activated carbon, wastewater treatment effluent, surface water, biodegradation
MeSH terms
Biodegradation, Environmental, Charcoal, Filtration, Flocculation, Germany, Laboratories, Ozone, Sweetening Agents, Water Supply, Water Purification, Bioreactors, Halogenation

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