Estimating illicit production of MDMA from its production waste, a Dutch case study.

The Netherlands plays a key role in the global production of the synthetic illicit drug MDMA. However, the actual Dutch production of MDMA is difficult to quantify. The illicit production of MDMA results in large amounts of waste.

A key factor in monitoring cannabis consumption trends through wastewater analysis: Partitioning of THCCOOH between the liquid and solid phase of influent wastewater.

Current wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) studies are predominantly focused on the analysis of urinary biomarkers present in the liquid phase of influent wastewater (IWW). This approach systematically underestimates less polar metabolites, such as cannabis biomarkers. These biomarkers can potentially sorb to and desorb from suspended particulate matter (SPM) present in IWW.

Mapping consumptions and market size of cocaine, amphetamine and MDMA through wastewater analysis: A Dutch case study.

Background And Aims: Illicit drug consumption is associated with public health effects and criminal activities. This study aimed to estimate Illicit drug consumption and annual market in the Netherlands from wastewater analysis of drug residues.

Methods: Residues of cocaine, amphetamine and 3,4-methylene dioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) were measured between 2015 and 2022 in 30 Dutch wastewater treatment plants serving both rural and urban populations.

Passive sampler housing and sorbent type determine aquatic micropollutant adsorption and subsequent bioassay responses.

The combination of integrative passive sampling and bioassays is a promising approach for monitoring the toxicity of polar organic contaminants in aquatic environments. However, the design of integrative passive samplers can affect the accumulation of compounds and therewith the bioassay responses. The present study aimed to determine the effects of sampler housing and sorbent type on the number of chemical features accumulated in polar passive samplers and the subsequent bioassay responses to extracts of these samplers.

Effects of high pressure and temperature conditions on the chemical fate of flowback water related chemicals.

Environmental risk assessment is generally based on atmospheric conditions for the modelling of chemical fate after entering the environment. However, during hydraulic fracturing, chemicals may be released deep underground. This study therefore focuses on the effects of high pressure and high temperature conditions on chemicals in flowback water to determine whether current environmental fate models need to be adapted in the context of downhole activities.

Spatial and temporal assessment of crack cocaine use in 13 European cities through wastewater-based epidemiology.

Already in early 2000s, concerns have been growing in the EU about increasing use of cocaine and it is estimated that below 1 % of the population administer the drug by smoking crack cocaine. New available data suggests an increase in the use of crack cocaine and an increase in the number of crack cocaine users entering treatment has been reported in several European countries. Robust estimations of crack cocaine use are however not available yet.

Analytical research of pesticide biomarkers in wastewater with application to study spatial differences in human exposure.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) relies on the assessment and interpretation of levels of biomarkers in wastewater originating from a well-defined community. It has provided unique information on spatial and temporal trends of licit and illicit drug consumption, and has also the potential to give complementary information on human exposure to chemicals. Here, we focus on the accurate quantification of pesticide biomarkers (i.

Retrospective suspect and non-target screening combined with similarity measures to prioritize MDMA and amphetamine synthesis markers in wastewater.

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and amphetamine are commonly used psychoactive stimulants. Illegal manufacture of these substances, mainly located in the Netherlands and Belgium, generates large amounts of chemical waste which is disposed in the environment or released in sewer systems. Retrospective analysis of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) data was implemented to detect synthesis markers of MDMA and amphetamine production in wastewater samples.

Independent mode sorption of perfluoroalkyl acids by single and multiple adsorbents.

Infinite dilution partition coefficients, , of a series of unbranched perfluoralkylacids, PFAAs with 3 to 8 CF units between water and commercially available weak anion exchange (WAX) and strong anion exchange (MAX) polymers, C-modified silica, hydrophilic-lipophilic balance polymer (HLB), and AlO sorbents were determined with self-packed columns using an HPLC-MS/MS setup. The anionic WAX sorbent shows a much higher adsorption affinity (about 450 fold) for PFBA than was observed for the applied hydrophobic sorbent HLB. Since the incremental value for each CF group is smaller when the electrostatic adsorption process is observed, the hydrophobic partition coefficient of HLB supersedes the electrostatic one of WAX at around PFTeDA.

Wastewater-based epidemiology for illicit drugs: A critical review on global data.

Illicit drug use is complex, hidden and often highly stigmatized behaviour, which brings a vast challenge for drug surveillance systems. Drug consumption can be estimated by measuring human excretion products in untreated wastewater, known as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Over the last decade, the application of wastewater-based epidemiology to monitor illicit drug loads increased and WBE is currently applied on a global scale.

Comparing conventional and green fracturing fluids by chemical characterisation and effect-based screening.

There is public and scientific concern about air, soil and water contamination and possible adverse environmental and human health effects as a result of hydraulic fracturing activities. The use of greener chemicals in fracturing fluid aims to mitigate these effects. This study compares fracturing fluids marketed as either 'conventional' or 'green', as assessed by their chemical composition and their toxicity in bioassays.

Uptake of perfluorinated alkyl acids by crops: results from a field study.

Four crops with different edible plant parts (radish, lettuce, pea and maize) were grown in outdoor lysimeters on soil spiked with 13 perfluorinated alkyl acids (PFAAs) at 4 different levels. PFAA concentrations were measured in soil, soil pore water, and different plant parts at harvest. Edible part/soil concentration factors ranged over seven orders of magnitude and decreased strongly with increasing PFAA chain length, by a factor of 10 for each additional fluorinated carbon (n) for pea.

Changes in drug use in European cities during early COVID-19 lockdowns - A snapshot from wastewater analysis.

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced countries to introduce severe restrictive measures to contain its spread. In particular, physical distancing and restriction of movement have had important consequences on human behaviour and potentially also on illicit drug use and supply. These changes can be associated with additional risks for users, in particular due to reduced access to prevention and harm reduction activities.

Application of wastewater-based epidemiology to investigate stimulant drug, alcohol and tobacco use in Lithuanian communities.

WBE was applied to evaluate illicit drug (i.e. amphetamine, cocaine, MDMA and methamphetamine), alcohol and tobacco use in three Lithuanian cities in 2018 and 2019.

patRoon: open source software platform for environmental mass spectrometry based non-target screening.

Mass spectrometry based non-target analysis is increasingly adopted in environmental sciences to screen and identify numerous chemicals simultaneously in highly complex samples. However, current data processing software either lack functionality for environmental sciences, solve only part of the workflow, are not openly available and/or are restricted in input data formats. In this paper we present patRoon, a new R based open-source software platform, which provides comprehensive, fully tailored and straightforward non-target analysis workflows.

Comparative field study on bioassay responses and micropollutant uptake of POCIS, Speedisk and SorbiCell polar passive samplers.

Routine water quality monitoring is generally performed with chemical analyses of grab samples, which has major limitations. First, snapshot samples will not give a good representation of the water quality. Second, it is not sufficient to analyze only a limited number of (priority) pollutants.

Influence of soil on the uptake of perfluoroalkyl acids by lettuce: A comparison between a hydroponic study and a field study.

This study explores whether mechanistic understanding of plant uptake of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) derived from hydroponic experiments can be applied to soil systems. Lettuces (Lactuca sativa) were grown in outdoor lysimeters in soil spiked with 4 different concentrations of 13 PFAAs. PFAA concentrations were measured in soil, soil pore water, lettuce roots, and foliage.

Advancements in effect-based surface water quality assessment.

Legally-prescribed chemical monitoring is unfit for determining the pollution status of surface waters, and there is a need for improved assessment methods that consider the aggregated risk of all bioavailable micropollutants present in the aquatic environment. Therefore, the present study aimed to advance effect-based water quality assessment by implementing methodological improvements and to gain insight into contamination source-specific bioanalytical responses. Passive sampling of non-polar and polar organic compounds and metals was applied at 14 surface water locations that were characterized by two major anthropogenic contamination sources, agriculture and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, as well as reference locations with a low expected impact from micropollutants.

Pilot-scale hybrid constructed wetlands for the treatment of cooling tower water prior to its desalination and reuse.

Cooling towers are responsible for a large part of the industrial fresh water withdrawal, and the reuse of cooling tower water (CTW) effluents can strongly lower industrial fresh water footprints. CTW requires desalination prior to being reused, but various CTW components, such as total organic carbon (TOC), conditioning chemicals and total suspended solids (TSS) hamper physico-chemical desalination technologies and need to be removed from the CTW. A cost-efficient and robust pre-treatment is thus required, which can be provided by constructed wetlands (CWs).

Sorption of surfactants onto sediment at environmentally relevant concentrations: independent-mode as unifying concept.

At low surfactant concentrations often non-linear sorption processes are observed when natural adsorbents like sediment or soil are involved. This sorption process is often explained by a Dual-Model (DM) model, which assumes sorption to an adsorbent to be based on a combined ionic-polar and non-polar sorption interaction term. An Independent-Mode (IM) model, however, could treat surfactant sorption as two independent sorption processes to which the non-polar and ionic-polar features of the surfactant molecule contribute differently.

Enantiomeric profiling of quinolones and quinolones resistance gene qnrS in European wastewaters.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) was applied for the first time in seven cities across Europe with the aim of estimating quinolones consumption via the analysis of human urinary metabolites in wastewater. This report is also the first pan-European study focussed on the enantiomeric profiling of chiral quinolones in wastewater. By considering loads of (fluoro)quinolones in wastewater within the context of human stereoselective metabolism, we identified cities in Southern Europe characterised by both high usage and direct disposal of unused ofloxacin.

Non-target screening reveals the mechanisms responsible for the antagonistic inhibiting effect of the biocides DBNPA and glutaraldehyde on benzoic acid biodegradation.

The desalination and reuse of discharged cooling tower water (CTW) as feed water for the cooling tower could lower the industrial fresh water withdrawal. A potential pre-treatment method before CTW desalination is the use of constructed wetlands (CWs). Biodegradation is an important removal mechanism in CWs.

Long-term exposure of activated sludge in chemostats leads to changes in microbial communities composition and enhanced biodegradation of 4-chloroaniline and N-methylpiperazine.

Exposure history and adaptation of the inoculum to chemicals have been shown to influence the outcome of ready biodegradability tests. However, there is a lack of information about the mechanisms involved in microbial adaptation and the implication thereof for the tests. In the present study, we investigated the impact of a long-term exposure to N-methylpiperazine (NMP) and 4-chloroaniline (4CA) of an activated sludge microbial community using chemostat systems.