TY - JOUR
T1 - Detection of equimolar EDTA and DTPA in spiked wastewater effluents
AU - Sander, Travis K.
AU - Gautam, Astha
AU - Sarpong-Kumankomah, Sophia
AU - Gailer, Jürgen
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriamine-pentaacetic acid (DTPA) are water ‘softening’ agents that are present in numerous household and industrial detergents. Since these particular chelating agents are not significantly degraded during conventional wastewater treatment processes, wastewater treatment plant (WTP) effluents can contain up to 19 µM of EDTA and 7 µM of DTPA. Little, however, is known about the release of EDTA and DTPA from WTPs to rivers. To gain insight, we here report on the development of a cost-effective analytical method. This method is based on the chromatography of a humic acid-cadmium (HA-Cd) complex on a size-exclusion chromatography column (SEC, Sephadex G-15) while using WTP effluents from Lethbridge, Banff and Canmore which contained 10 mM Tris-buffer as the mobile phase (pH 8.2). The intact HA-Cd complex is detected by means of a flame atomic absorption spectrometer (FAAS). The addition of equimolar EDTA and DTPA up to 10 µM allowed us to observe a concentration-dependent increase of the retention time of the main Cd-peak. This behaviour was qualitatively comparable between the WTP effluents and was rationalised by the EDTA/DTPA-mediated mobilisation of Cd from the HA-Cd complex. The signal intensity that corresponded to the mobilised Cd was used to establish calibration curves with corresponding correlation coefficients in the range of 0.950–0.978. Therefore, the developed method yields robust results for realistic concentrations of equimolar EDTA/DTPA in real WTP effluents. The developed method can now be applied to analyse real WTP effluent for the presence of chelating agents, whose concentrations may be expressed as being equivalent to a particular equimolar EDTA/DTPA concentration.
AB - Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriamine-pentaacetic acid (DTPA) are water ‘softening’ agents that are present in numerous household and industrial detergents. Since these particular chelating agents are not significantly degraded during conventional wastewater treatment processes, wastewater treatment plant (WTP) effluents can contain up to 19 µM of EDTA and 7 µM of DTPA. Little, however, is known about the release of EDTA and DTPA from WTPs to rivers. To gain insight, we here report on the development of a cost-effective analytical method. This method is based on the chromatography of a humic acid-cadmium (HA-Cd) complex on a size-exclusion chromatography column (SEC, Sephadex G-15) while using WTP effluents from Lethbridge, Banff and Canmore which contained 10 mM Tris-buffer as the mobile phase (pH 8.2). The intact HA-Cd complex is detected by means of a flame atomic absorption spectrometer (FAAS). The addition of equimolar EDTA and DTPA up to 10 µM allowed us to observe a concentration-dependent increase of the retention time of the main Cd-peak. This behaviour was qualitatively comparable between the WTP effluents and was rationalised by the EDTA/DTPA-mediated mobilisation of Cd from the HA-Cd complex. The signal intensity that corresponded to the mobilised Cd was used to establish calibration curves with corresponding correlation coefficients in the range of 0.950–0.978. Therefore, the developed method yields robust results for realistic concentrations of equimolar EDTA/DTPA in real WTP effluents. The developed method can now be applied to analyse real WTP effluent for the presence of chelating agents, whose concentrations may be expressed as being equivalent to a particular equimolar EDTA/DTPA concentration.
KW - DTPA
KW - EDTA
KW - Water quality
KW - chelating agents
KW - pollution quantification
KW - water-reuse
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064609841&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/03067319.2019.1600685
DO - 10.1080/03067319.2019.1600685
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064609841
SN - 0306-7319
VL - 99
SP - 541
EP - 556
JO - International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry
JF - International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry
IS - 6
ER -