Abstract
Pharmaceuticals enhance our quality of life; consequently, their consumption is growing as a result of the need to treat ageing-related and chronic diseases and changes in the clinical practice. The market revenues also show an historic growth worldwide motivated by the increase on the drug demand. However, this positivism on the market is fogged because the discharge of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites into the environment, including water, also increases due to their inappropriate management, treatment and disposal; now, worldwide, this fact is recognized as an environmental concern and human health risk. Intriguingly, researchers have studied the most effective methods for pharmaceutical removal in wastewater; however, the types of pharmaceuticals investigated in most of these studies do not reflect the most produced and consumed pharmaceuticals on the market. Hence, an attempt was done to analyze the pharmaceutical market, drugs consumption trends and the pharmaceutical research interests worldwide. Notwithstanding, the intensive research work done in different pharmaceutical research fronts such as disposal and fate, environmental impacts and concerns, human health risks, removal, degradation and development of treatment technologies, found that such research is not totally aligned with the market trends and consumption patterns. There are other drivers and interests that promote the pharmaceutical research. Thus, this review is an important contribution to those that are interested not only on the pharmaceutical market and drugs consumption, but also on the links, the drivers and interests that motivate and determine the research work on certain groups of pharmaceuticals on water and wastewater.
Highlights
Pharmaceuticals are a group of emergent organic compounds that have contributed to enhance our quality of life
Despite the intensive research work done worldwide in different pharmaceutical research activities such as disposal and fate, environmental impacts and concerns, human health risks, removal, degradation and development of treatment technologies, there has never been an attempt to analyze the relationships among the pharmaceuticals market, the consumption trends, the fatal disease incidence rate and disease burden in the population with respect to the different pharmaceuticals research fronts
European and American companies remain the leaders of the pharmaceutical market
Summary
Pharmaceuticals are a group of emergent organic compounds that have contributed to enhance our quality of life. In most cases, the reaction times were not sufficiently short [73], the intermediates/oxidation products were not degraded [74,75] and a continuous injection of oxygen to generate H2 O2 was required; these can be considered expensive and ineffective methods Technologies such as electrochemical oxidation have shown promising progress due to their versatility, energy efficiency, automation, environmental compatibility, and cost-effectiveness and are currently being used for pharmaceutical removal [76]. Despite the intensive research work done worldwide in different pharmaceutical research activities such as disposal and fate, environmental impacts and concerns, human health risks, removal, degradation and development of treatment technologies, there has never been an attempt to analyze the relationships among the pharmaceuticals market, the consumption trends, the fatal disease incidence rate and disease burden in the population with respect to the different pharmaceuticals research fronts.
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