A study by the Water
Technology Center
in Karlsruhe, Germany, found that a number of
commonly used artificial sweeteners are present in German waste and surface
water. The new analytical method of extracting and analyzing many chemicals
simultaneously demonstrated that sewage treatment plants fail to remove artificial
sweeteners and other chemicals from water supplies.
The sweeteners were found in waters downstream of the treatment
plants where scientists Marco Scheurer, Heinz-Jürgen Brauch and Frank Thomas
Lange collected water samples. Their findings were published online this week in
Springer’s journal "
Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry."
Through the
use of this new method, the researchers were able to look for seven different
artificial sweeteners – cyclamate, acesulfame, saccharin, aspartame, neotame,
neohesperidin dihydrochalcone and sucralose – simultaneously. Until now, only
sucralose has been detected in aquatic environments.
Read
a full report here from the Environment News Service (ENS)
>>
