Co-occurrence and Exposure Assessment of Parabens and Heavy Metals in Groundwater Sources in Two Rural Communities in Nigeria

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Date

2023-12

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Lead City University

Abstract

The constant release of contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) such as parabens and heavy metals into groundwater systems is becoming of great concern due to their numerous negative effects on plants, human and animal health since groundwater is a major source of water supply. In this study, ten (10) randomly selected groundwater sources from two communities were investigated for the concentrations of parabens and heavy metals. Preparation of samples for parabens was done using Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) while analysis was carried out on LC-UV. Instrumental analysis was carried out for heavy metals using Perkin Elmer Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry optima 8000 (ICP-OES), Shimadzu. The trend of total concentrations of parabens was EtP < PrP < MeP < BuP with values ranging from 30.14 to 400.08 µg L-l. The toxicity of parabens to aquatic organisms was in the order algae < fish < daphnia. In addition, the concentrations of heavy metals such as Fe, Al, Co, Cr and Pb were observed to exceed WHO permissible limits of 0.3, 0.2, 0.01, and 0.05 mg L-1. Furthermore, human health risk assessment data revealed that target carcinogenic risk (TCR) values for heavy metals in children and adults were higher than the permissible limit of 1.0 x 10 -4 and were in the order of Ni > Cr >Pb. Conclusively, the human health assessment results from this study revealed that consuming water from these sources is not safe for the dwellers of both communities. Keywords: Groundwater, Parabens, Heavy metals Word Count: 240

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Keywords

Groundwater, Parabens, Heavy metals

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