Determining the ecotoxic effects of micropolluttants occurrance in the effluent of the wastewater treatment plants on aquatic environment

Endocrine disrupting chemicals such as Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH), Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and Bisphenol A (BPA), generally known as micropollutants (MPs), are pollutants with strong toxic effects that human beings have been exposed to unintentionally in daily life in the last century. Insensible using of pesticides, increasing using of plastic, incomplete combustion in processes or nondegradeable organics compound, personal use products and industrial establishments constitute the waste source of MPs. Micropollutants's damaged effects may occured differents ways in the environmental media for example incomplete combustion or biodegratability, bioaccumulate mechanism and occurance of metabolites. Due to the physicochemical properties, its behaviors have differents in the environmental media. In addition, they have the ability to be transported depending on their physicochemical properties. MPs may entered with the natural and anthropogenic ways as controlled or noncontrolled in the environmental media. When the release of MPs as a controlled their final points are in waste water treatment plants. MPs's are not possible treat in the convensional treatment plants but they may treat with the special treatment process. MPs entered the wastewater treatment plants can pass directly to receiving environments as a result of discharge if they are not applied to a special treatment process. As well as directly affecting the flora and fauna in these environments, it can reach the highest living creatures through the food chain. The European Union Water Framework Directive (EU-WFD) is the lead directive for this pollutant group that threatens living and environmental health. With the creation of the priority pollutant list in the EU-WFD, the regulation has been integrated into our country and the concentration determination studies for the CCs in the receiving environments have been started in various national legislation. Within the scope of doctorate thesis; (i) In the wastewater treatment plants in the city center of Antalya where domestic and urban wastewater is treated, target MPs (PAH, PCB and BPA) in organic structure have been detected and measurement techniques have been developed. (ii) The ecotoxic effects of the target micro-pollutants in the wastewater treatment plant effluent in the aquatic environment have been determined. In the thesis; organic MPs were extracted together with a disk-based automatic solid-liquid phase extraction system and MPs concentrations were determined by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The surface water algae Chlorella vulgaris and seawater algae Phaeodactylum tricornutum were used as indicator organisms in the experimental studies carried out in accordance with the OECD 201 and ISO10256: 2016 test procedures during the detection of ecotoxic effects. As a result of the monitoring studies carried out in wastewater treatment plants, the pollutant concentrations detected in the influent ∑8 PAH: 7.523-94.524 µg / L; ∑7 PCB: 8.42-21.25 µg / L; BPA: 8.78-75.59 µg/L. Pollutant concentrations in the effluent ∑8 PAH: 1.22-39.46 µg / L; ∑7 PCB: 2.31-13.35 µg / L; BPA: 5.16-28.06 µg / L. Within the scope of the thesis study, it was determined that the inhibition values of Chlorella vulgaris, a green algae species, were between 3-60 % and the inhibition values of Phaeodactylum tricornutum between 8-89 % in studies aimed at determining the ecotoxic effects of target pollutants.