Scientists have been able to detect many artificial sweeteners in waste waters in Germany. The detection has been done through an analytical method that extracts and analyses seven common sweeteners. The method was developed by Frank Thomas, Marco Scheurer, and Heinz-Jurgen Brauch at the Water Technology Centre, Karlsruhe in Germany.

A range of artificial sweeteners are used in food, drinks, drugs, and sanitary products. Sucralose is the only sweetener to be detected in aquatic environments until now. There has been a debate on the health hazards of artificial sweeteners for quite some time.

By using new analytical method, researchers were able to detect seven artificial sweeteners; sucralose, neotame, cyclamate, saccharin, aspartame, dihydrochalcone, and acesulfame simultaneously. Thus, the finding shows that seven common artificial sweeteners are present in German waste and surface water.

The researchers collected the samples of water from two sewage treatment plants in Germany and also from soil aquifer treatment plant. The water samples were tested using new analytical method and detected four of the seven artificial sweeteners from the samples taken from two sewage treatment plants. This indicated incomplete elimination at the time of water treatment.

The analyses showed that these pollutants infect streams that receive water from treatment plants. The researchers later compared water treatment from sewage treatment with that from soil aquifer treatment. There were traces of artificial sweeteners even in water from soil aquifer treatment, which is considered to be more advanced. This gave proof that in neither case was the water purification complete.