Fate of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in wastewater treatment plants – Conception of a database and first results

Abstract

By means of a database including information from 117 international scientific papers, we present quantitative conclusions on the concentrations, frequencies of detection and removals of pharmaceutical products in wastewater treatment plants. Abstract:We created a database in order to quantitatively assess the occurrence and removal efficiency of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). From 117 scientific publications, we compiled 6641 data covering 184 PPCPs. Data included the concentrations of PPCPs in WWTP influents and effluents, their removal efficiency and their loads to the aquatic environment. The first outputs of our database allowed to identify the most investigated PPCPs in WWTPs and the most persistent ones, and to obtain reliable and quantitative values on their concentrations, frequency of detection and removal efficiency in WWTPs. We were also able to compare various processes and pointed out activated sludge with nitrogen treatment and membrane bioreactor as the most efficient ones.

Biodegradation of sulfamethoxazole: current knowledge and perspectives

“…The synthetic compound sulfamethoxazole (SMX) is one of the most popularly prescribed and consumed sulfonamide antibiotics (Cavallucci 2007;Hruska and Franek 2012) leading to its presence in the aquatic environment via WW discharge (Avisar et al 2009;Santos et al 2010) and its frequent detection in WWs at up to microgram-per-liter levels and surface waters at nanogram-per-liter levels (Batt et al 2007;Joss et al 2005;Kolpin et al 2002;Miège et al 2009;Peng et al 2006;Yargeau et al 2007;Gao et al 2012a). At these concentrations, SMX has been found to be mutagenic but not acutely toxic to Vibrio fisheri and Daphnia magna (Isidori et al 2005) and to be phytotoxic to algae (García-Galán et al 2011) and other plant species (Hillis et al 2011).…”

Ozone treatment prevents the toxicity of an environmental mixture of estrogens on rat fetal testicular development

“…We chose to use the four most prevalent compounds known to be present in wastewater. Concentrations used were determined based on average concentrations in wastewater influent, as described by Miege et al [12] in an analysis of 115 international research papers. Importantly, equivalent concentrations have also been reported in effluents of water treatment plants [12] as well as in surface and grounds waters [20].…”

“…Concentrations used were determined based on average concentrations in wastewater influent, as described by Miege et al [12] in an analysis of 115 international research papers. Importantly, equivalent concentrations have also been reported in effluents of water treatment plants [12] as well as in surface and grounds waters [20]. Moreover, other man-made chemicals known to have estrogenic activities have been detected in wastewaters and in the environment and could contribute to an overall exposure [21].…”

“…Working solutions and calibration standards were prepared by appropriate dilution of stock solutions in 1L of ultrapure water to obtain the selected final concentrations. The 1X MIX concentration listed in Table 1 was based on a review of [12]. Control waters were made by adding the equivalent volume of EtOH (standardized to be 0.01% of the final volume) and O 3 (Supplemental Table 1).…”

“…These estrogenic effects have been shown to be responsible for inhibiting spermatogenesis and are suspected to be responsible for increases in hermaphrodism observed in fish in a variety of aquatic ecosystems [10,11]. While several substances in treated wastewater have been identified as estrogenic, the presence of naturally occurring female steroid hormones (17β-estradiol (E2); estrone (E1) and estriol (E3)) and synthetic estrogens used in the contraceptive pills (17-ethinylestradiol: EE2), are thought to be the most prevalent and significant in terms of estrogenic effects [12].…”