Pello Alfonso-Muniozguren1, Efraím A Serna-Galvis2, Madeleine Bussemaker1, Ricardo A Torres-Palma3, Judy Lee4. 1. Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford GU27XH, United Kingdom. 2. Grupo de Investigación en Remediación Ambiental y Biocatálisis (GIRAB), Instituto de Química, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Antioquia UdeA, Calle 70 No. 52-21, Medellín, Colombia; Grupo de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Corporación Universitaria Remington (Uniremington), Calle 51 No. 51-27, Medellín, Colombia. 3. Grupo de Investigación en Remediación Ambiental y Biocatálisis (GIRAB), Instituto de Química, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Antioquia UdeA, Calle 70 No. 52-21, Medellín, Colombia. Electronic address: ricardo.torres@udea.edu.co. 4. Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Surrey, Guildford GU27XH, United Kingdom. Electronic address: j.y.lee@surrey.ac.uk.
Abstract
Contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) such as pharmaceuticals commonly found in urban and industrial wastewater are a potential threat to human health and have negative environmental impact. Most wastewater treatment plants cannot efficiently remove these compounds and therefore, many pharmaceuticals end up in aquatic ecosystems, inducing problems such as toxicity and antibiotic-resistance. This review reports the extent of pharmaceutical removal by individual processes such as bioreactors, advanced oxidation processes and membrane filtration systems, all of which are not 100% efficient and can lead to the direct discharge of pharmaceuticals into water bodies. Also, the importance of understanding biotransformation of pharmaceutical compounds during biological and ultrasound treatment, and its impact on treatment efficacy will be reviewed. Different combinations of the processes above, either as an integrated configuration or in series, will be discussed in terms of their degradation efficiency and scale-up capabilities. The trace quantities of pharmaceutical compounds in wastewater and scale-up issues of ultrasound highlight the importance of membrane filtration as a concentration and volume reduction treatment step for wastewater, which could subsequently be treated by ultrasound.
Contaminants of emerging concern (n class="Chemical">CECn>) such as pharmaceuticals commonly found in urban and industrial wastewater are a potential threat to human health and have negative environmental impact. Most wastewater treatment plants cannot efficiently remove these compounds and therefore, many pharmaceuticals end up in aquatic ecosystems, inducing problems such as toxicity and antibiotic-resistance. This review reports the extent of pharmaceutical removal by individual processes such as bioreactors, advanced oxidation processes and membrane filtration systems, all of which are not 100% efficient and can lead to the direct discharge of pharmaceuticals into water bodies. Also, the importance of understanding biotransformation of pharmaceutical compounds during biological and ultrasound treatment, and its impact on treatment efficacy will be reviewed. Different combinations of the processes above, either as an integrated configuration or in series, will be discussed in terms of their degradation efficiency and scale-up capabilities. The trace quantities of pharmaceutical compounds in wastewater and scale-up issues of ultrasound highlight the importance of membrane filtration as a concentration and volume reduction treatment step for wastewater, which could subsequently be treated by ultrasound.
Authors: Efraim A Serna-Galvis; Ana María Botero-Coy; Diana Martínez-Pachón; Alejandro Moncayo-Lasso; María Ibáñez; Félix Hernández; Ricardo A Torres-Palma Journal: Water Res Date: 2019-02-05 Impact factor: 11.236
Authors: Mónica Vergara-Araya; Henning Oeltze; Jenny Radeva; Anke Gundula Roth; Christian Göbbert; Robert Niestroj-Pahl; Lars Dähne; Jürgen Wiese Journal: Membranes (Basel) Date: 2022-05-08