Removal efficiency of artificial sweeteners in wastewater treatment plants in Serbia

Abstract

Artificial sweeteners have been recognized as high-priority emerging contaminants that cause great concern due to unknown environmental behavior and long-term ecotoxicological impact on water resources. Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove these pollutants and consequently they are continuously introduced into the aquatic environment. This paper describes investigation of four artificial sweeteners, highly abundant in urban wastewater, and their removal rate in wastewater treatment plants in Serbia, in order to assess the efficiency of the treatment to reduce their environmental inputs. For this purpose, influent and effluent wastewater samples from two treatment plants were extracted and analyzed using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry.