Occurrence, removal, and risk assessment of emerging contaminants in aquatic products processing sewage treatment plants

Emerging contaminants (ECs) in aquatic environments have attracted attention due to their wide distribution and potential ecotoxicities. Sewage treatment plants (STPs) are proven to be the major source of ECs in the aquatic environment, while there remains insufficient understanding of the removal and risk assessment of ECs in STPs. Here, we clarified the degradation and risk impact of 13 ECs in two aquatic product processing sewage treatment plants (APPSTPs) along the southeast coast of China. The concentrations of ECs followed the order: endocrine-disrupting chemicals (1877.85–15,398.02 ng/L in influent, 3.37–44.47 ng/L in effluent) >  > sulfonamide antibiotics (SAs, 75.14–906.19 ng/L in influent, 1.14–15.33 ng/L in effluent) > pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs, 44.47–589.93 ng/L in influent, 2.54–34.16 ng/L in effluent) ≈ fluoroquinolone antibiotic (54.76–434.83 ng/L in influent, 10.75–32.82 ng/L in effluent) > other antibiotics (16.21–51.96 ng/L in influent, 0.68–6.17 ng/L in effluent). Moreover, the concentrations of PPCPs (decreased by 55.33–87.65% in peak fishing season) and antibiotics (increased by 44.99% in peak fishing season) were affected by fishing activities. In particular, the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) process had a better removal effect than the anaerobic-anoxic–oxic (A2/O) process on the treatment of some contaminants (e.g., norfloxacin and nonylphenol). Risk evaluations of ECs demonstrated that nonylphenol and SAs were at high- and low-risk states, respectively. Overall, our results provide important information for the degradation treatment of ECs, which is essential for pollutant management policy formulation.