The importance of the suspended solids parameter on the quantitative analysis of di-n-butyl phthalate in a wastewater treatment system.

The present study has investigated the influence of the filtration step of the liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) on the quantitative analysis of di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP) in the wastewater treatment system of the University of Caxias do Sul (WWTS-UCS). During five months, five wastewater samples from the inflow and outflow points were collected and submitted to LLE with and without the filtration step. The organic extracts were analyzed by Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detection (GC/FID). The DnBP removal in the filtered samples was 36%, and the median DnBP concentration at the outflow point was 17.45 μg/mL. For the unfiltered samples, the DnBP removal was 39%, and the median DnBP concentration at the outflow point was 21.45 μg/mL. According to these results, an important fraction of the contaminant is retained in the LLE filtration step leading to considerable errors in the quantification of the target compounds.