title: Degradability of creatinine under sewer conditions affects its potential to be used as biomarker in sewage epidemiology.
abstract: Creatinine was proposed to be used as a population normalising factor in sewage epidemiology but its stability in the sewer system has not been assessed. This study thus aimed to evaluate the fate of creatinine under different sewer conditions using laboratory sewer reactors. The results showed that while creatinine was stable in wastewater only, it degraded quickly in reactors with the presence of sewer biofilms. The degradation followed first order kinetics with significantly higher rate in rising main condition than in gravity sewer condition. Additionally, daily loads of creatinine were determined in wastewater samples collected on Census day from 10 wastewater treatment plants around Australia. The measured loads of creatinine from those samples were much lower than expected and did not correlate with the populations across the sampled treatment plants. The results suggested that creatinine may not be a suitable biomarker for population normalisation purpose in sewage epidemiology, especially in sewer catchment with high percentage of rising mains.
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, The National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology (Entox), 39 Kessels Rd., Coopers Plains, QLD 4108, Australia. Electronic address: p.thai@uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Phong K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Thai
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, The National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology (Entox), 39 Kessels Rd., Coopers Plains, QLD 4108, Australia.
authors.forename: Jake
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, Advanced Water Management Centre, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Guangming
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, Advanced Water Management Centre, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gernjak
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, Advanced Water Management Centre, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Zhiguo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, The National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology (Entox), 39 Kessels Rd., Coopers Plains, QLD 4108, Australia.
authors.forename: Geoff
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Eaglesham
authors.affiliation: The University of Queensland, The National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology (Entox), 39 Kessels Rd., Coopers Plains, QLD 4108, Australia.
authors.forename: Jochen F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Mueller
mesh_terms: D019149:Bioreactors / Q000382:microbiology; D003404:Creatinine / Q000378:metabolism*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D012722:Sewage / Q000382:microbiology*; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid
chemical_list: D012722:Sewage; D003404:Creatinine
keywords: Degradation; Sewer biofilms; Sewer reactor; Stability; Wastewater analysis