Emerging Contaminants and Advanced Water Treatment System

To investigate the behavior of emerging contaminants in drinking water, we measured the concentration of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and a number of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in an advanced water treatment system. PFOA concentration ranged from 4 to 225 ng/L and 5 to 153 ng/L in raw water and final water, respectively, at the Kunijima purification plant. However the concentrations of PFOA had decreased since September, 2007, as the volume of sewerage treatment plant effluents decreased in the same period. It was thought that the consumption of PFOA had decreased in the upstream area. We have also developed an analytical method for 73 PPCPs using LC-MS/MS. The number of PPCPs of which the average concentration was more than the quantification limit at the Kunijima purification plant was 30 in raw water, but fell to two (iopamidol, iohexol) in finished water. The advanced water treatment system, in particular the ozonation process, appears thus to remove PPCPs efficiently.