title: Is digestate safe? A study on its ecotoxicity and environmental risk on a pig manure.
abstract: Digestate represents a precious by-product in particular in agriculture, however its impact on the environment and human health is still unexplored. In this work, the toxicity of a pig slurry digestate was assessed through 7 ecotoxicity tests and considering 10 different endpoints. Besides, a synthetic index was applied to the outputs of the battery of tests for the environmental risk assessment, in order to evaluate the opportunity to use directly this kind of digestate in agriculture or to introduce an additional treatment. All the organisms were sensitive to digestate toxicity (EC50 ranged from 14.22% for Cucumissativus to 0.77% for Raphidocelis subcapitata). The physical-chemical features at the base of this toxicity seem to be the high content of ammonium, salinity, COD, phosphate and colour. The synthetic index showed that the digestate was very toxic and associated to an extremely high environmental risk. Thus, a pre-treatment is needed to reduce its toxicity and environmental impact, whatever could be its exploitation.
authors.affiliation: Mycotheca Universitatis Taurinensis, Department of Life Sciences and System Biology, University of Turin, viale Mattioli, 25, 10125 Turin, Italy. Electronic address: valeria.tigini@unito.it.
authors.forename: Valeria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tigini
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Aquatic Ecosystems, Department of Life Sciences and System Biology, University of Turin, via Accademia Albertina, 13, 10123 Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Franchino
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Aquatic Ecosystems, Department of Life Sciences and System Biology, University of Turin, via Accademia Albertina, 13, 10123 Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bona
authors.affiliation: Mycotheca Universitatis Taurinensis, Department of Life Sciences and System Biology, University of Turin, viale Mattioli, 25, 10125 Turin, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanna Cristina
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Varese
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D008372:Manure; D012037:Refuse Disposal; D018570:Risk Assessment; D034421:Sus scrofa; D013552:Swine; D018675:Toxicity Tests; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D008372:Manure
keywords: Algae; Anaerobic digestion; Bacteria; Bioassays; Crustaceans; Phytotoxicity