o:3817 Steroid-based tracing of sewage-sourced pollution of river water and wastewater treatment efficiency: Dissolved and suspended water phase distribution en Abstract: In this work, the environmental distribution of steroid compounds and the level of sewage-derived contamination were assessed using sterol ratios in the confluence area of two major rivers in the Serbian capital, where raw sewage is discharged without any treatment. Special attention was paid to steroids partitioning between the dissolved and suspended phases of river and wastewater samples, since steroids tend to easily bind to particulate matter. The efficiency of sterol removal in two wastewater treatment plants in Serbiawas also evaluated. Human/animal sterols coprostanol and cholesterol, and phytosterol β-sitosterolwere the dominant compounds in allwater samples. The sterol abundance pattern in river water was different from that in raw sewage, indicating amore pronounced biogenic input, as well as greater impact of wastewater discharges on the composition of the suspended phase. Severe contamination of the investigated area was determined, with the Danube being more contaminated than the Sava River due to different hydrodynamic conditions leading to significantly higher sterol levels in the suspended particulate matter. It was also shown that the greater part of human/animal sterols and phytosterols present in river water samples (83.0 ± 11.9 % and 87.1 ± 15.2 %) and wastewater samples (92.1 ± 6.8 % and 95.0 ± 5.7 %) was bound to suspended material compared to the dissolved phase, emphasizing the need to consider and analyze both water phases in the tracing of steroid-based environmental pollution in order to obtain a realistic picture of steroid contamination and their fate in the aquatic environment. A high removal rate (>98 %) of coprostanol and cholesterol during wastewater treatment was determined and only the coprostanol/(coprostanol + cholestanol) ratio was found to be sensitive enough to be affected by an improvement in the quality of treated wastewater. surface water, sastewater, sterols, steroid hormones, suspended particulate matter, sterol ratios 1552099 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157510 2024-01-19T11:33:25.490Z 44 no 46 Zorica Jauković Innovation Centre of the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, Belgrade Svetlana Grujić University of Belgrade, Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, Belgrade person 0000-0003-4787-1391 Ivana Matić Bujagić Academy of Applied Technical Studies Belgrade, Belgrade Polytechnic College, Belgrade person Anđelka Petković Jaroslav Černi Water Institute, Belgrade person Mila Laušević University of Belgrade, Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, Belgrade person application/pdf 1497299 https://unilib.phaidrabg.rs/o:3817 no yes 1 70 92000001 71A04 Science of the Total Environment 846 1 12 Elsevier B.V. 2022-07 Received 16 March 2022 Received in revised form 14 July 2022 Accepted 15 July 2022 Available online 20 July 2022