Determination of EDTA in Dairy Wastewater and Adjacent Surface Water

An HPLC-UV analytical method was developed to determine ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) in dairy wastewater and surface water. The optimizing separation was achieved by reversed–phase ion-pair liquid chromatography on a C18 column using methanol as mobile phase solvent, tetrabutylammonium bromide as the ion-pair reagent in pH 3.3 formate buffer solution at a flow rate of 0.9 mL min-1 with a UV detector at 265 nm. No interference of Ca, Mg or NO3 - was detected. Method performance was evaluated in terms of linearity, repeatability and reproducibility. The method detection limit was 5 μg L-1. The contents of EDTA in dairy effluents were 72 ~ 261 μg L-1 at a large dairy site. A change of EDTA concentration was observed downstream of the dairy effluent discharge, but this was well under the predicted no effect concentration for aquatic ecosystem.

Authors:

• Congmin Z. Xie
• Terry Healy
• Peter Robinson
• Kevin Stewart

Keywords:

• Dairy wastewater
• EDTA
• HPLC
• surface water.

References:

[1] G. Bylund, "Cleaning of dairy equipment," in Dairy Process Handbook;
Lund, Sweden: Tetra Pak Processing Systems AB, 1995, pp. 403-413
[2] K. Wolf and P. A. Gilbert, "EDTA-Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid," in
The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, Vol. 3, O. Hutzinger, Ed.
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1992, pp. 243- 259
[3] European Union, "Tetrasodium Ethylenediamineacetate(Na4EDTA),
European Union Risk Assessment Report, " E. C. Bureau, 2004
[4] Biogeochemistry of Chelating Agents, Vol. ACS910, B. Nowack and J. M.
VanBriesen, Eds. Oxford University Press, Washington D.C., 2005, p.458
[5] M. Bucheli-Witschel and T. Egli, "Environmental fate and microbial
degradation of aminopolycarboxlic acids," FEM Microbiology Review
Vol. 25, pp. 69-106, 2001
[6] C. E. Cagnasso, L. B. L¤îpez, V. G. Rodr├¡guez and M. E. Valencia,
"Development and validation of a method for the determination of EDTA
in non-alcoholic drinks by HPLC," Journal of Food Composition and
Analysis, Vol. 20, pp. 248-25, 2007
[7] S. Loyaux-Lawniczak, J. Douch and P. Behra, "Optimisation of the
analytical detection of EDTA by HPLC in natural waters", Fresenius J
Anal Chem, Vol. 364, pp.727-731,1999
[8] B. Nowack, F. G. Kauri, S. U. Hilger, and L. Sigg, "Determination of
dissolved and adsorbed EDTA species in water and sediments by HPLC,"
Anal Chem, Vol. 68, pp. 561-566,1996
[9] P. M. Nirel, P. E. Pardo, C. Landry and R. Revalier, " Method for EDTA
speciation determination : application to sewage treatment plant
effluents," Water Res, Vol.32, pp. 3615-3620, 1998
[10] P. Laine and R. Matilinen, "Simultaneous determination of DTPA, EDTA,
and NTA by UV-visible spectrometry and HPLC," Anal Bioanal Chem,
Vol. 382, pp.1601-1609, 2005
[11] Germany standard methods DIN 38413 - 8, 2000
[12] L. Katata, V. Nagaraju and A. M. Crouch, "Determination of
ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, ethylenediaminedisuccinic acid and
iminodisuccinic acid in cosmetic products by capillary electrophoresis and
high performance liquid chromatography," Analytica Chimica Acta, Vol.
579, pp. 177-184, 2006
[13] L. R. Snyder, J. J. Kirkland and J. L. Glajch, Practical HPLC method
Development,2nd Ed, A Wiley-Interscience publication, JOHN WILLEY
& SONS, INC, 1997