The detection of pollution?some novel approaches

✍ Scribed by Fearnside, David ;Caffoor, Issy

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 234 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-4725
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1098-2256(1998)13:4<347::aid-tox7>3.0.co;2-7

✦ Synopsis

The development of industry in towns and cities can give rise to effluents arriving at sewage treatment works that are inhibitory to carbonaceous oxidation and nitrification processes or that can release toxins that will incorporate onto sewage sludge. Accidental or illegal discharges in sewers and in rivers can also cause treatment problems at the receiving sewage treatment and water treatment works. U.K. Water companies have identified a need to develop technologies and tests that enable them to monitor sewage treatment and water treatment works intakes in order to identify and apply consent limits on sources of pollution or to automatically switch to enhanced processes or diversion mechanisms to prevent disruption to treatment processes. This paper will describe developments relating to such respiration inhibition tests and nitrification inhibition tests, which can be applied to legal consents to discharge. Developments relating to on-line technologies utilizing the bioluminescent response of naturally occurring and genetically engineered bacteria, as a broad based toxicity sensor, will also be discussed.