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.

Role of nanomaterials in water treatment applications: a review.

Treatment Technologies for Emerging Contaminants in water: A review

Synthesis and photocatalytic activity of ferrites under visible light: A review

Removal of tetracycline by NaOH-activated carbon produced from macadamia nut shells: Kinetic and equilibrium studies

Studies on the removal of tetracycline by multi-walled carbon nanotubes

The degradation of acid fuchsin solutions under microwave irradiation (MW) combined with the MgFe2O4 was studied in this work The degradation process was investigated by UV–vis, FT-IR, TOC and ion chromatogram techniques The results indicated that the degradation percentage of acid fuchsin could reach up to 9978%, corresponding to 912% of TOC removal, and acid fuchsin had been degraded into harmless products under microwave irradiation time 15 min The effects of pH, addition amount of catalysts on the efficiency of the degradation have been investigated The mechanism of acid fuchsin degradation was also discussed With the advantages of low cost and rapid processing, this novel MW/MgFe2O4 composite could gain promising application in the treatment of various dyestuff wastewaters on a large scale

Investigation on the degradation of acid fuchsin induced oxidation by MgFe2O4 under microwave irradiation

Investigation on the degradation of brilliant green induced oxidation by NiFe2O4 under microwave irradiation

A simple and rapid analytical method for the separation of tellurium from cadmium in aqueous solution by solid-phase extraction with nano-particles was developed. It was found that only Te(IV) could be quantitatively retained on nano–TiO2 in the pH range of 0.5–2.0, while Cd(II) was not adsorbed, but Cd(II) ions could be adsorbed quantitatively on nano-TiO2 within pH range of 4.0–9.0. The effects of acidity and concentration of elution solution on the recovery of the analytes were systematically investigated. The sorption data could be well interpreted by the Langmuir model. Based on the Langmuir model equation, the monolayer adsorption capacity of nano-TiO2 was calculated to be 32.75 mg · g−1 for Te(IV), and 6.34 mg · g−1 for Cd(II) (at 293 K). The removal percentages of Te(IV) and Cd(II) obtained from batch studies using nano-TiO2 particles were 98% and 97%, respectively. And the method was validated with column studies which showed a removal percentage of Te(IV) of 97%. The result provides a new approa...

Xiaoyan Song

Papers

Studies on the removal of tetracycline by multi-walled carbon nanotubes

Investigation on the degradation of acid fuchsin induced oxidation by MgFe2O4 under microwave irradiation

Investigation on the degradation of brilliant green induced oxidation by NiFe2O4 under microwave irradiation

Study on the Separation of Tellurium from Cadmium in Aqueous Media using Nano-Particles Micro-Column