Occurrence and Elimination of Pharmaceuticals During Conventional Wastewater Treatment

Pharmaceuticals have an important role in the treatment and prevention of disease in both humans and animals. Since they are designed either to be highly active or interact with receptors in humans and animals or to be toxic for many infectious organisms, they may also have unintended effects on animals and microorganisms in the environment. Therefore, the occurrence of pharmaceutical compounds in the environment and their potential effects on human and environmental health has become an active subject matter of actual research. There are several possible sources and routes for pharmaceuticals to reach the environment, but wastewater treatment plants have been identified as the main point of their collection and subsequent release into the environment, via both effluent wastewater and sludge. Conventional systems that use an activated sludge process are still widely employed for wastewater treatment, mostly because they produce effluents that meet required quality standards (suitable for disposal or recycling purposes), at reasonable operating and maintenance costs. However, A. Jelić (*) • A. Ginebreda Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), C/Jordi Girona, 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: [email protected] M. Gros Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), c/Emili Grahit 101, 17003 Girona, Spain M. Petrović Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), c/Emili Grahit 101, 17003 Girona, Spain Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Passeig Lluis Companys 23, 80010 Barcelona, Spain D. Barceló Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA-CSIC), C/Jordi Girona, 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), c/Emili Grahit 101, 17003 Girona, Spain King Saud University (KSU), P.O. Box 2455, 11451 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia H. Guasch et al. (eds.), Emerging and Priority Pollutants in Rivers, Hdb Env Chem (2012) 19: 1–24, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-25722-3_1, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 1 this type of treatment has been shown to have limited capability of removing pharmaceuticals from wastewater. The following chapter reviews the literature data on the occurrence of these microcontaminants in wastewater influent, effluent, and sludge, and on their removal during conventional wastewater treatment.