Abstract
The presence of pharmaceutical products in the water cycle may cause harmful effects such as morphological, metabolic and sex alterations in aquatic organisms and the selection/development of organisms resistant to antimicrobial agents. The compounds’ stability and persistent character hinder their elimination by conventional physico-chemical and biological treatments and thus, the development of new water purification technologies has drawn great attention from academic and industrial researchers. Recently, the electro-Fenton process has been demonstrated to be a viable alternative for the removal of these hazardous, recalcitrant compounds. This process occurs under the action of a suitable catalyst, with the majority of current scientific research focused on heterogeneous systems. A significant area of research centres working on the development of an appropriate catalyst able to overcome the operating limitations associated with the homogeneous process is concerned with the short service life and difficulty in the separation/recovery of the catalyst from polluted water. This review highlights a present trend in the use of different materials as electro-Fenton catalysts for pharmaceutical compound removal from aquatic environments. The main challenges facing these technologies revolve around the enhancement of performance, stability for long-term use, life-cycle analysis considerations and cost-effectiveness. Although treatment efficiency has improved significantly, ongoing research efforts need to deliver economic viability at a larger scale due to the high operating costs, primarily related to energy consumption.
Highlights
Anthropogenic activities are considered a significant threat to the ecological environment with unsustainable development practices leading to deterioration in the surface water resource quality and as such, contamination issues for drinking water supply [1].growing awareness of environmental concerns has prompted the introduction of new legislation in order to preserve the environment and natural resources
The range of pharmaceutical products may be classified into antibiotics, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), β-blockers, contrast agents, anticonvulsants, hormones and lipid regulators [4], with antibiotics and NSAIDs most commonly reported as water pollutants due to their high use for clinical purposes (Table 1) [5]
This review describes the present trends in the use of heterogenous catalysts for the
Summary
Anthropogenic activities are considered a significant threat to the ecological environment with unsustainable development practices leading to deterioration in the surface water resource quality and as such, contamination issues for drinking water supply [1]. Despite research demonstrating high removal and mineralisation percentages with a wide range of pharmaceutical target pollutants, the electro-Fenton process suffers from multiple operational limitations, mainly attributed to the homogeneous process. The number of relevant report, tion using electro-Fenton process has increased exponentially over articles, the past 5reviews, years 1a), with research on antibiotic removal gaining more interest than the other classes of purification using electro-Fenton process has increased exponentially over the past 5 years pharmaceutical compounds (Figure 1b).
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