Evaluation of Conventional Treatment Processes for Removal of Mutagenic Activity from Municipal Wastewaters

摘要

The present study was conducted to evaluate the mutagenicity of a domestic wastewater and a combined domestic/industrial wastewater at various stages of conventional treatment. Influent (raw wastewater) and effluent samples were subjected to sequential acid/base liquid-liquid extractions with methylene chloride and the extracts were assayed for mutagenic activity in the Ames test. S. typhimurium strain TA98 gave the highest responses of the tester strains to mutagens present (up to approximately 20,000 revertants/liter), but activity was also detectable with strains TA1537 and TA100.