@article{ref1,
title="Stability of illicit drugs as biomarkers in sewers: from lab to reality",
journal="Environmental science and technology",
year="2018",
author="Li, Jiaying and Gao, Jianfa and Thai, Phong K. and Sun, Xiaoyan and Mueller, Jochen F. and Yuan, Zhiguo and Jiang, Guangming",
volume="52",
number="3",
pages="1561-1570",
abstract="Systematic sampling and analysis of wastewater samples is increasingly adopted for estimating drug consumption in communities. An understanding of the in-sewer transportation and transformation of illicit drug biomarkers is critical for reducing the uncertainty of this evidence-based estimation method. In this study, biomarkers stability was investigated in lab-scale sewer reactors with typical sewer conditions. Kinetic models using the Bayesian statistics method were developed to simulate biomarkers transformation in reactors. Furthermore, a field-scale study was conducted in a real pressure sewer pipe with the systematical spiking and sampling of biomarkers and flow tracers. In-sewer degradation was observed for some spiked biomarkers over typical hydraulic retention time (i.e. a few hours). <br><br>RESULTS indicated that sewer biofilms prominently influenced biomarker stability with the retention time in wastewater. The fits between the measured and the simulated biomarkers transformation demonstrated that, the lab-based model could be extended to estimate the changes of biomarkers in real sewers. <br><br>RESULTS also suggested that the variabilities of biotransformation and analytical accuracy are the two major contributors to the overall estimation uncertainty. Built upon many previous lab-scale studies, this study is one critical step forward in realizing wastewater-based epidemiology by extending biomarker stability investigations from laboratory reactors to real sewers.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0013-936X",
doi="10.1021/acs.est.7b05109",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b05109"
}