Fate and transport of compounds with estrogenic activity in reconstructed soil columns

ABSTRACT Endocrine disruptors (ED) are exogenous agents capable of deregulating the normal functioning of the endocrine system in humans and animals. The ED entry routes in the environment highlight the launch of domestic and agricultural wastewater in water bodies. This work aims to evaluate the occurrence, mobility and biosorption attenuation of hormones and antibiotics in soil columns in the application of agricultural and domestic waste and rain simulation. Soil columns, which were filled with soil from an agricultural area, were installed under the conditions of a swine wastewater application (ARS) at a dose of 50 m3/ha with and without the biosorbent effect and human urine at a rate equivalent to nitrogen compared with ARS. The estrogen concentrations were observed by High-performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detector (HPLC-DAD), and the mass balance was developed to evaluate the estrogen removal in the soil profile. The occurrence of hormones in all analyses was approximately 20%. Pine bark adsorbent was found to be considerably efficient in removing hormones from liquid matrices. The mass balance of the soil columns with adsorbent exhibited an estrogen recovery in the matrix applied to less than a 1% rate. For comparison, the soil columns without adsorbent obtained a mass transit about 20% of the total applied.