Fate of priority pharmaceuticals and their main metabolites and transformation products in microalgae-based wastewater treatment systems

Behavior of UV Filters, UV Blockers and Pharmaceuticals in High Rate Algal Ponds Treating Urban Wastewater

“…On the other hand, Liu et al demonstrated that BZT was photodegradable, and obtained removals in stabilization ponds (with HRT of 27 days) of 47% [38,60]. Nevertheless, photodegradation, which is usually enhanced in microalgae-based treatment systems [16,17], was not significant for BZT under the HRAP configuration in the present study. Given its high solubility and low K ow , its retention/sorption tendency on the microalgae biomass was also low.…”

“…Currently, these systems are being intensively investigated regarding their capacity to eliminate organic micropollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), obtaining promising results [11,16,17]. PPCPs comprise a broad number and variety of compounds, which are neither routinely monitored in wastewaters, nor regulated [18,19].…”

“…Within this context, HRAPs are gaining a renewed popularity due to their demonstrated high efficiency treating wastewater [10][11][12] within a more sustainable frame than activated sludge treatments. Efficient removal of different PPCPs such as hormones, anti-inflammatories and other pharmaceuticals in HRAPs has recently been demonstrated [11,16], yet the number of studies on the removal capacity of microalgae-based systems against these organic contaminants is scarce, especially in real scale systems.…”

Can high rate algal ponds be used as post-treatment of UASB reactors to remove micropollutants?

“…Through photosynthesis, microalgae generate the oxygen needed by heterotrophic bacteria to aerobically degrade the organic contaminants present in the water. HRAPs are efficient removing both organic matter and nutrients and also a wide variety of micropollutants by photodegradation, bioadsorption and biodegradation (Matamoros et al, 2015;García-Galán et al 2018, 2020. Indeed, biodegradation is an important route of removal in HRAPs since the large presence of microalgae and heterotrophic bacteria can remove these compounds intra and extracellularly, by means of adsorption on the cell wall (Xiong et al, 2018).…”

“…Indeed, biodegradation is an important route of removal in HRAPs since the large presence of microalgae and heterotrophic bacteria can remove these compounds intra and extracellularly, by means of adsorption on the cell wall (Xiong et al, 2018). The removal efficiency of these ponds for different PhACs has been only recently studied by different authors, obtaining good results for most of the target analytes (de Godos et al, 2012;Hom-Diaz et al, 2017b;García-Galán et al, 2020), but there is still a lack of knowledge regarding the different mechanisms governing these systems (Young et al, 2017). Likewise, the removal of PhACs during UASB treatment, which operates at much lower HRT, needs to be further investigated.…”