Removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) from wastewater: A review.

In recent years, concerns about the occurrence and fate of active pharmaceutical ingredients, solvents, intermediates and raw materials that could be present in water and wastewater including pharmaceutical industry wastewater has gained increasing attention. Traditional wastewater treatment methods, such as activated sludge, are not sufficient for the complete removal of active pharmaceutical ingredients and other wastewater constituents from these waters. As a result, complementary treatment methods such as membrane filtration, reverse osmosis and activated carbon are often used in conjunction with the traditional methods for treatment of industrial wastewater. Most of the literature published to date has been on the treatment of municipal wastewater. However, there is a growing body of research that looks at the presence of active pharmaceutical ingredients in industrial wastewater, the treatment of these wastewaters and the removal rates. This article, reviews these treatment methods and includes both traditional methods and advanced oxidation processes. The paper concludes by showing that the problem of pharmaceuticals in wastewaters cannot be solved merely by adopting end of pipe measures. At source measures, such as replacement of critical chemicals, reduction in raw material consumption should continue to be pursued as the top priority.

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Treatment options for wastewater effluents from pharmaceutical companies

Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) are not efficiently removed in wastewater treatment plants and are released into surface waters resulting in toxin accumulation. The aims of this study were to investigate the effect of solar irradiation on PhACs in wastewater using immobilized TiO 2 present as a catalyst, and to study the potential of this photocatalysis technique as a post-treatment process for wastewater effluent. We treated a mixture of PhACs spiked in wastewater effluent and in deionized water as a control with simulated solar irradiation for 96 h. Experiments were conducted with immobilized TiO 2 (photocatalysis) and without (photolysis). First, TiO 2 was successfully immobilized on 200–500 μm sand by using a sol–gel method. The photocatalysis resulted in high removal efficiencies for poorly biodegradable PhACs in wastewater effluent: 100% for propranolol, 100% for diclofenac, and 76 ± 3% for carbamazepine. Photodegradation of all four PhACs followed pseudo-first-order kinetics, and the kinetic constant of photocatalysis was much higher than that of photolysis in the absence of a catalyst. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) in wastewater effluent enhanced photodegradation of PhACs by producing reactive radicals. However, at the same time, DOM inhibited photodegradation, possibly because DOM reforms the oxidation intermediates of PhACs into parent compounds. From an application perspective, water depth was confirmed as a key factor in photodegradation of PhACs due to light attenuation by modelling and experimental results. In addition, after photocatalysis, toxicity of PhACs decreased and biodegradability of wastewater effluent increased slightly. In conclusion, the technique is a promising post-treatment process to improve water quality, prior to discharging to natural waters or to polishing water treatment systems such as wetlands and lagoons.

Degradation of pharmaceuticals in wastewater using immobilized TiO2 photocatalysis under simulated solar irradiation

There are growing concerns about the increasing trends of emerging micropollutants in the environment due to their potential negative impacts on natural ecosystems and humans. This has attracted attention from both governmental and non-governmental organisations worldwide. Pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and endocrine disruptors are continuously being released consciously or unconsciously into water sources due to poor regulatory frameworks especially in the developing countries. The effects of these contaminants are poorly known. They are not easily biodegradable and have become an environmental nuisance and public health issue. This has heightened the risk of exposure to their deleterious effects in such countries where the majority of the population are still struggling to have access to good quality drinking water supplies and better sanitation. With the rising fear of short- and long-term impacts of the ever-increasing number of persistent recalcitrant organic compounds accumulating in the environment, their removal is gradually becoming an issue to the water treatment industry. Hence, there is a need to develop functional techniques for the management of water contaminated by these emerging contaminants so as to increase the availability and access to safe and good-quality drinking water. We conducted a narrative review on these emerging micropollutants and examined their various documented sources, effects, as well as recent techniques for their effective removal. This becomes necessary due to the increasing occurrence of these pollutants in the aquatic and terrestrial environment. These levels are expected to further increase in the coming years as a consequence of the ever-increasing population density which undoubtedly characterizes developing economies. Our findings show that the present reported treatment techniques in the literature such as biological oxidation/biodegradation, coagulation/flocculation, ozonation, electrodialysis, reverse osmosis, sedimentation, filtration, and activated carbon were not designed for removal of these newly identified contaminants, and as such, the techniques are not sufficient and unable to completely degrade the compounds. We therefore recommended the need for concerted efforts to develop better techniques, especially combined advanced oxidative methods to address the shortcomings of and growing challenge to current practices.

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A Review of Pharmaceuticals and Endocrine-Disrupting Compounds: Sources, Effects, Removal, and Detections

Analysis and advanced oxidation treatment of a persistent pharmaceutical compound in wastewater and wastewater sludge-carbamazepine.

Widespread detection of pharmaceutical compounds in water environment has been a serious concern recently, while conventional sewage treatments are ineffective for their elimination. But, advanced oxidation techniques are very promising to remove varieties of organic contaminants in water. This research aims to elucidate oxidation potentials of sixteen commonly used pharmaceutical compounds in mixed solutions by seven advanced oxidation techniques in laboratory batch experiments. The removal profiles exhibited four distinct patterns: a) easily degradable by all seven techniques, b) not easily degradable by all seven techniques, c) easily degradable by ozone-based techniques, but not by ultraviolet radiation-based techniques and d) easily degradable by ultraviolet radiation-based techniques, but not by ozone-based techniques. Ozone-based techniques rather than ultraviolet radiation-based techniques were very powerful for simultaneous removal of the compounds efficiently. Moreover, ozonation combined with ultraviolet radiation was the most appropriate technique for simultaneous removal of the tested compounds efficiently. Increased ozone dissolution and decomposition with ozone-based techniques did not always enhance the compounds' removal. Physicochemical properties of the compounds and solution pH also presumably played an important role on the removal which merits further attention.

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S. Ota

Papers

Degradation of common pharmaceuticals and personal care products in mixed solutions by advanced oxidation techniques.