Pharmaceuticals And Personal Care Products In Wastewater Research Articles

Research Progress on Pollution Characteristics, Degradation, and Transformation of Typical PPCPs in the Process of Wastewater Treatment

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have received extensive attention as a new type of pollutant inin the 21st century, and the ecological and health risks caused by PPCPs have gradually been recognized by government regulatory agencies. Daily use of PPCPs has led to their frequent detection and high concentrations in the influent, effluent, and sludge of wastewater treatment plants, but traditional wastewater treatment processes can't remove them effectively. Most research about enhancing the removal of PPCPs through microbial degradation, photodegradation, and ozonation is still in the laboratory research stage, and the removal effects are not satisfactory when applied to actual sewage treatment. Therefore, the effective removal of PPCPs from domestic wastewater is a critical technical problem that urgently needs to be studied and solved in the coming years. At present, many scholars do not have a comprehensive understanding about the degradation and transformation behaviors of microbes, ultraviolet, and ozone for typical PPCPs in the wastewater treatment process, so it is necessary to conduct a systematic analysis and discussion. In this study, 16 typical PPCPs frequently detected in sewage treatment plants were selected as research objects through a literature review. The occurrence, removal characteristics, and sludge adsorption properties of typical PPCPs in wastewater treatment plants were analyzed and summarized. The degradation and transformation behavior of typical PPCPs under microbial, ultraviolet, and ozone treatments in the wastewater treatment process were also discussed. Finally, based on current research gaps, some research directions for the removal and transformation of PPCPs in wastewater were proposed:① investigation into the removal characteristics of PPCPs by actual biochemical treatment; ② study on the mechanism of microbial degradation and transformation of typical PPCPs during biochemical treatment; ③ study on the degradation and transformation mechanism of typical PPCPs by UV/ozone in an actual sewage system; and ④ research on the application technology of removing PPCPs from sewage via microbial degradation, photodegradation, ozone oxidation, etc. The relevant results of this study can provide a reference for the pollution control of typical PPCPs in the sewage treatment process.

Wrinkle structure on multifunctional MOFs to facilitate PPCPs adsorption in wastewater

A novel multifunctional metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) UiO-66@Fe3O4@UiO-66 (UiO = University of Oslo) was fabricated to adsorb pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) under near neutral conditions. We designed a wrinkle structure on the surface of UiO-66@Fe3O4@UiO-66 by seeded growth strategy. These wrinkles were composed of Fe3O4 nanoparticles and outermost UiO-66. It made the specific surface area of the MOFs increases, and provided multiple active sites for a representative pollutant salicylic acid (SA) adsorption. Moreover, lattice defects formed during secondary growth facilitating the coordination interaction between SA and the secondary building unit of UiO-66@Fe3O4@UiO-66 under near neutral conditions. These advantages made the adsorption capacity of per unit mass UiO-66 in UiO-66@Fe3O4@UiO-66 about 42% higher than that of the pristine UiO-66, and the removal rate of 1 mg L−1 SA reach 64.5% in real wastewater. Furthermore, magnetic Fe3O4 particles in the wrinkles exhibited outstanding magnetic separation performance. So that UiO-66@Fe3O4@UiO-66 can be effectively separated from the liquid media and regenerated after adsorption. The results show that the wrinkled MOFs could be used as an excellent candidate for SA adsorption in real wastewater. More importantly, this strategy could guide the preparation of different kind of MOFs to adsorb PPCPs in wastewater.

A microbial electro-fenton cell for removing carbamazepine in wastewater with electricity output

High electrical energy is required for the electro-Fenton process to remove pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in wastewater. The aim of this study was to develop a novel and more cost-effective process, specifically a microbial electro-Fenton cell (MeFC), for treating PPCPs in wastewater. Acetylene black was selected as the catalyst for H2O2 electrogeneration and Fe-Mn binary oxide for hydroxyl radical production. In addition to lowering energy needs, the MeFC produced a maximum power density of 112 ± 11 mW/m2 with 1 g/L acetate as a representative substrate and 10 mg/L carbamazepine (CBZ) as a typical PPCP. Comparing with electro-Fenton process, the CBZ removal in the MeFC was 38% higher within 24 h operation (90% vs. 62%). Furthermore, the CBZ removal rate in the MeFC was 10–100 times faster than that in other biological treatment processes. Such enhanced degradation of CBZ in the MeFC was attributed to the synergistic reactions between radical oxidation of CBZ and biodegradation of degradative intermediates. The MeFC provides a promising method to remove PPCPs from wastewater coupling with efficient removal of other biodegradable organics.

Influence of wastewater precoagulation on adsorptive filtration of pharmaceutical and personal care products by carbon nanotube membranes

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) have been widely studied for adsorption of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP). However, effluent organic matter (EfOM) is found to compete with PPCP for sorption sites on MWCNT, thereby markedly reducing the adsorptive capacities of MWCNT for PPCP in wastewater effluent. Herein, we report that precoagulation of secondary wastewater effluent effectively mitigated the competitive adsorption of EfOM and increased the adsorption capacities of MWCNT for acetaminophen, caffeine, triclosan, and carbendazim by up to 34%. Analyses of the coagulated waters using size exclusion chromatography and three-dimensional fluorescence spectrophotometry revealed that precoagulation primarily removed biopolymers and humic substances; the latter is known to suppress PPCP adsorption onto MWCNT. Moreover, the removal of EfOM by precoagulation reduced membrane permeability decrement and relieved membrane fouling. These results suggest that coagulation, a conventional technique widely used by water treatment plants, is a viable pretreatment approach for filtration of PPCP in wastewater by MWCNT. This finding also demonstrates the potential of integrating conventional technology and novel nanotechnology for cost-effective, advanced wastewater treatment.

Can wastewater-based epidemiology be used to evaluate the health impact of temperature? – An exploratory study in an Australian population

Ambient temperature is known to have impact on population health but assessing its impact by the traditional cohort approach is resource intensive. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) could be an alternative for the traditional approach. This study was to provide the first evaluation to see if WBE can be used to assess the impact of temperature exposure to a population in South East Queensland, Australia using selected pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) as biomarkers. Daily loads of eight PPCPs in wastewater collected from a wastewater treatment plant were measured from February 2011 to June 2012. Corresponding daily weather data were obtained from the closest weather station. Missing data of PPCPs were handled using the multiple imputation (MI) method, then we used a one-way between-groups analysis of variance to examine the seasonal effect on daily variation of PPCPs by seasons. Finally, an MI estimate was performed to evaluate the continuous relationship between daily average temperature and each multiply-imputed PPCP using time-series regression analysis. The results indicated that an increase of 1°C in average temperature associated with decrease at 1.3g/d (95% CI: −2.2 to (−0.4), p<0.05) for atenolol, increase at 36.5g/d (95% CI: 25.2–47.8, p<0.01) for acesulfame, and increase at 0.8g/d (95% CI: 0.02–1.55, p=0.05) for naproxen. No significant association was observed between temperature and the remaining PPCPs, comprising: caffeine, carbamazepine, codeine, hydrochlorothiazide, and salicylic acid. The findings suggested that consumption of sweetened drinks, risk of worsening cardiovascular conditions and pains are associated with variation in ambient temperature. WBE can thus be used as a complementary method to traditional cohort studies in epidemiological evaluation of the association between environmental factors and health outcomes provided that specific biomarkers of such health outcomes can be identified.

PPCPs in wastewater – Update and calculation of characterization factors for their inclusion in LCA studies

The purpose of this paper is to provide Characterization Factors (CFs) for the toxicity related impact categories in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs). The CFs already available were updated whereas others were implemented for the first time by means of USEtox and USES-LCA 2.0 methodologies. The list of PPCPs includes human toxicity and freshwater ecotoxicity for both models whereas terrestrial and marine ecotoxicity were assessed with USES-LCA 2.0. Moreover, all the available emission compartments were considered for the calculation. The resulting CFs were subjected to a sensitivity analysis and results determined that human toxicological and ecotoxicological effects (ED50 and avlogEC50, respectively) as well as degradation rate in water were the most sensitive parameters. The calculated CFs were used in the environmental assessment of a Completely Autotrophic Nitrogen removal Over Nitrite (CANON) pilot plant. PPCPs were found to have a major impact on freshwater ecotoxicity, accounting for 81% or 97% of the total impact with USES-LCA 2.0 and USEtox, respectively. Moreover, a more precise determination of human toxicity was obtained after updating CFs values calculated with USEtox, with contributions up to 50% of the total impact. Therefore, the provision of new and updated CFs allows a more accurate environmental assessment of processes where PPCPs are present.

Occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products along the West Prong Little Pigeon River in east Tennessee, USA

Presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the environment has received a great attention due to their potential impacts on public health. This study examined the occurrence of PPCPs in West Prong Little Pigeon River in east Tennessee. As wastewater is a major source for environmental occurrence of PPCPs, both wastewater and river water samples were analyzed for nine target PPCPs and their estrogenicity. No estrogens were detected in influent, secondary effluent, and river samples. However, ibuprofen, caffeine, triclosan, bisphenol A, and bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) were detected in the influent. Ibuprofen, triclosan, and DEHP were detected in the secondary effluent samples. Only ibuprofen and triclosan were detected in river water collected near a wastewater outfall. Based on yeast estrogenic screening (YES) assays, estrogenic activities were observed in all influent, secondary effluent, and river water samples. Increased estrogenic activities were observed in river right after receiving effluent discharge, and the activities decreased as river water flowing away from the outfall. The estrogenicities of water samples measured from YES assays were much higher than those estimated from PPCP concentrations and their known estrogenicities, suggesting the presence of other unknown estrogenic compounds and/or additive effects of mixtures of estrogenic compounds at low concentrations. Results of this study demonstrated that wastewater contributed to environmental occurrence of PPCPs in the receiving water. As there is a myriad of known and unknown PPCPs in wastewater, in additional to chemical analysis, estrogenic bioassays are needed for assessing estrogenicity of environmental samples.