In the last few decades, pharmaceuticals, credited with saving millions of lives, have emerged as a new class of environmental contaminant. These compounds can have both chronic and acute harmful effects on natural flora and fauna. The presence of pharmaceutical contaminants in ground waters, surface waters (lakes, rivers, and streams), sea water, wastewater treatment plants (influents and effluents), soils, and sludges has been well doccumented. A range of methods including oxidation, photolysis, UV-degradation, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, and adsorption has been used for their remediation from aqueous systems. Many methods have been commercially limited by toxic sludge generation, incomplete removal, high capital and operating costs, and the need for skilled operating and maintenance personnel. Adsorption technologies are a low-cost alternative, easily used in developing countries where there is a dearth of advanced technologies, skilled personnel, and available capital, and adsorption appears to be the most broadly feasible pharmaceutical removal method. Adsorption remediation methods are easily integrated with wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Herein, we have reviewed the literature (1990-2018) illustrating the rising environmental pharmaceutical contamination concerns as well as remediation efforts emphasizing adsorption.

Pharmaceuticals of Emerging Concern in Aquatic Systems: Chemistry, Occurrence, Effects, and Removal Methods.

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Studies in Surface Science and Catalysis

19세기말 애국적 담론과 新小說의 정체성

Pharmaceuticals are known to occur widely in the environment of industrialized countries. In developing countries, more monitoring results have recently become available, but a concise picture of measured environmental concentrations (MECs) is still elusive. Through a comprehensive literature review of 1016 original publications and 150 review articles, the authors collected MECs for human and veterinary pharmaceutical substances reported worldwide in surface water, groundwater, tap/drinking water, manure, soil, and other environmental matrices in a comprehensive database. Due to the heterogeneity of the data sources, a simplified data quality assessment was conducted. The database reveals that pharmaceuticals or their transformation products have been detected in the environment of 71 countries covering all continents. These countries were then grouped into the 5 regions recognized by the United Nations (UN). In total, 631 different pharmaceutical substances were found at MECs above the detection limit of the respective analytical methods employed, revealing distinct regional patterns. Sixteen substances were detected in each of the 5 UN regions. For example, the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac has been detected in environmental matrices in 50 countries, and concentrations found in several locations exceeded predicted no-effect concentrations. Urban wastewater seems to be the dominant emission pathway for pharmaceuticals globally, although emissions from industrial production, hospitals, agriculture, and aquaculture are important locally. The authors conclude that pharmaceuticals are a global challenge calling for multistakeholder approaches to prevent, reduce, and manage their entry into and presence in the environment, such as those being discussed under the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, a UN Environment Program.

https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/etc.3339

Pharmaceuticals in the environment--Global occurrences and perspectives.

Antibiotics in the aquatic environments: A review of the European scenario.

The acid dissociation constant is an important physicochemical parameter of a substance, and knowledge of it is of fundamental importance in a wide range of applications and research areas. We present a critical review of published methods and approaches for the determination of acid dissociation constants, with a special emphasis on the p K a values of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

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Determination of pKa values of active pharmaceutical ingredients

Photolytic degradation of norfloxacin, enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin in various aqueous media.

Sample preparation is a very important and essential step in environmental analysis. This article presents an overview of extraction methods for environmental samples, focusing especially on pharmaceuticals as there is great concern about them as pollutants.

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Sandra Babić

Papers

Determination of pKa values of active pharmaceutical ingredients

Photolytic degradation of norfloxacin, enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin in various aqueous media.

Sample preparation in analysis of pharmaceuticals

Ultrasonic solvent extraction of pesticides from soil

Solid phase extraction and HPLC determination of veterinary pharmaceuticals in wastewater