Evaluating the degradation, sorption, and negative mass balances of pharmaceuticals and personal care products during wastewater treatment

Blair, Benjamin; Nikolaus, Adam; Hedman, Curtis J.; Klaper, Rebecca; Grundl, Tim

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2015.04.078

Cited by 245 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…A worrying factor from these studies is that these contaminants are still being detected after wastewater treatment, as well as within environmental waters in rivers. Such trends of persistence of priority emerging contaminants after wastewater treatment are also recorded globally for PPCPs (Kasprzyk-Hordern et al, 2009;Petrie et al, 2015;Blair et al, 2015). Contaminants which are not removed from water treatment processes are therefore destined to end up back in the environment (therefore affecting wildlife), or might possibly end up in drinking water, as shown in reports by De Jager et al (2013) and Patterton (2013).…”

Section: Pharmaceuticals and Steroid Hormones Detected In South Africmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Apart from the potential of pharmaceutical metabolites to exert higher health impacts if they are present in the environment, the occurrence of negative mass balances for pharmaceuticals and their metabolites has also been detected at several WWTWs globally (Kasprzyk-Hordern et al, 2009;Blair et al, 2015). This trend in negative mass balances is defined as higher concentrations of ECs being detected in WWTW effluents compared to raw wastewater entering the plant.…”

Section: Pharmaceutical Metabolites and Conjugates In Wwtwsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One possibility is that the parental compounds of ECs are not detected within raw sewage, as the metabolite form of these compounds is more prevalent. It may be possible that these metabolites might then be re-transformed to their parental compounds by the microbial communities present in the treatment plant, or by abiotic factors such as photolytic processes (Bonvin et al, 2013;Aris et al, 2014;Blair et al, 2015). This may therefore indicate that some compounds may bio-accumulate or transform within WWTWs, either through enzymatic metabolism or other abiotic pathways, and then be discharged into environmental waters.…”

Section: Pharmaceutical Metabolites and Conjugates In Wwtwsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It can therefore only be assumed that the presence of PPCPs in environmental waters may contribute even more towards EDC pollution in freshwater resources than pesticides used in households or agriculture. Although it is globally recognised and recorded that several classes of PPCPs are present in environmental waters (Kasprzyk-Hordern et al, 2009;Petrie et al, 2015;Blair et al, 2015), not many studies have been done on PPCP pollutants present in South African waters (especially PPCPs acting as EDCs), and this therefore needs to be addressed in future studies.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review: <i>Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) as endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs) in South African surface waters</i>

Archer

Wolfaardt

Wyk

2017

WSA

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Globally, water resources are under constant threat of being polluted by a diverse range of man-made chemicals, and South Africa is no exception. These contaminants can have detrimental effects on both human and wildlife health. It is increasingly evident that several chemicals may modulate endocrine system pathways in vertebrate species, and these are collectively referred to as endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs). Although the endocrine-disrupting effect of water pollutants has been mainly linked to agricultural pesticides and industrial effluents, other pollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are largely unnoticed, but also pose a potentially significant threat. Here we present for the first time in a South African context, a summarised list of PPCPs and other EDCs detected to date within South African water systems, as well as their possible endocrine-disrupting effect in-vitro and in-vivo. This review addresses other factors which should be investigated in future studies, including endocrine disruption, PPCP metabolites, environmental toxicology, and antibiotic resistance. The challenges of removing EDCs and other pollutants at South African wastewater treatment works (WWTWs) are also highlighted. The need for focused research involving both in-vitro and in-vivo studies to detect PPCPs in water systems, and to delineate adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) of priority PPCPs to aid in environmental impact assessment (EIA), are discussed.

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Section: Pharmaceuticals and Steroid Hormones Detected In South Africmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Pharmaceutical Metabolites and Conjugates In Wwtwsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pharmaceutical Metabolites and Conjugates In Wwtwsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Review: <i>Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) as endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs) in South African surface waters</i>

Archer

Wolfaardt

Wyk

2017

WSA

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“…. 2014) , (Blair et al 2015) , (Ryu et al 2014) , (Rodayan et al 2014) , (Luo et al 2014) (Lee et al 2005) , (Luo et al 2014) a = population biomarker rankings are from O'Brien et al (2014) (2014) In terms of ranking potential population markers in the population model proposed in our earlier work , acesulfame was selected as the best marker due to a strong correlation between mass load and population size (Table 9) (R 2 = 0.995) followed by gabapentin (R 2 = 0.968), hydrochlorothiazide (R 2 = 0.944) and norfloxacin (R 2 = 0.929). We had assumed that these linear regressions would also take into account uncertainties such as degradation/transformation in the sewer, variability from the different sampling methods, and any differences in consumption and excretion in the different regions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Refining the uncertainties and expansion of wastewater-based epidemiology for assessing population exposure to chemicals

O’Brien¹

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Systematic sampling and analysis of wastewater is an increasingly used tool to complement more traditional techniques for assessing consumption of licit and illicit chemical substances in the population. The use of wastewater sampling and analysis contributes to a broader field that is referred to as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Both spatial and temporal analysis can be conducted quantitatively, quickly and cost effectively using the WBE approach.In brief, per capita exposure to a given chemical within a population is estimated by measuring the concentration of that chemical or a metabolite in a representative wastewater sample multiplied by the volume of wastewater represented by the sample, divided by the population size from which the sample originates and correcting by factors such as the excretion factor of the metabolite or chemical, molecular weight change and potential stability of the chemical within the sewer. It has previously been determined that the population size is the largest uncertainty for WBE estimates.The aim of this thesis it to therefore identify useful markers that allow population estimation for a given wastewater sample and apply this technique including to assess per capita exposure/release of a group of chemicals that have not been examined in previous WBE studies.The approach for this thesis was to systematically collect samples on a day when the population is well defined. For this we collected samples on the 2011 Census Day in Australia from 10 wastewater catchments ranging in size from approximately 1,500 to 500,000 people. By providing catchment maps to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the accurate population size for each catchment was determined.The most obvious choice of a potentially useful population markers are endogenous chemicals such as creatinine. Therefore, in Chapter 2, creatinine was assessed as a population marker. It was found that there was no correlation between the mass load of creatinine in wastewater and the population. Using laboratory-scale sewer reactors with conditions representative of both gravity sewers and rising mains, it was found that creatinine, while stable in collected samples, is unstable under sewer conditions. We therefore conclude that creatinine is not suitable for predicting differences in population size particularly when different sewer systems are compared. 2In Chapter 3, a method was developed to quantify 96 chemicals in wastewater influent and applied to the census wastewater samples to identify potential population size markers. Thirteen chemicals including acesulfame, caffeine, and pharmaceuticals and personal care products were detected in all samples and found to have a good correlation (R 2 > 0.8) between mass load and population size. A Bayesian inference model was developed which incorporated these potential population size markers to provide a population size estimate. The model was validated using a leave-one-out approach for all sites and comparing the population size estimate from the model with the accur...

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Biodegradation of Environmental Pollutants by Autochthonous Microorganisms – A Precious Service for the Restoration of Impacted Ecosystems

Fernandes

Alexandrino

Mucha

et al. 2022

Assessing the Microbiological Health of Ecosystems

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Evaluating the degradation, sorption, and negative mass balances of pharmaceuticals and personal care products during wastewater treatment

Cited by 245 publications

References 34 publications

Review: <i>Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) as endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs) in South African surface waters</i>

Review: <i>Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) as endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs) in South African surface waters</i>

Refining the uncertainties and expansion of wastewater-based epidemiology for assessing population exposure to chemicals

Biodegradation of Environmental Pollutants by Autochthonous Microorganisms – A Precious Service for the Restoration of Impacted Ecosystems

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