Performance and efficiency of removal of pharmaceutical compounds from hospital wastewater by lab-scale biological treatment system

Abstract

The fate of pharmaceuticals after discharged from hospital into wastewater was clarified experimentally by using a new lab-scale conventional activated sludge (CAS) treatment reactor. The 43 target compounds belong to nine therapeutic classes (antivirals, antibacterials, anticancer drugs, psychotropics, antihypertensives, analgesic-antipyretics, contrast media, herbal medicines, and phytoestrogens) were selected with inclusion of 16 newly estimated compounds. The efficiency of the present reactor was estimated by comparing the reaction rate constant of the solid-water partition coefficients (log K) between liquid and solid samples and half-life during 48-h experiment obtained by using hospital effluents with those obtained by using STP wastewater. The results that no significant difference in removal efficiency was observed between both water samples (P > 0.05) indicate high reliability of the present lab-scale reactor. The actual rates of removal when hospital effluent was applied varied widely (mean, 59 ± 40%) independent of type of the pharmaceuticals. More than 90% of 17 compounds were removed after 8 h of treatment. However, the values for psychotropics (mean, 19 ± 26%) and contrast media (mean, 24 ± 17%) were generally low, indicating high stability. The log K values ranged from 1.3 to 4.8. Notably, clarithromycin, acridine, and glycitein could be removed in both liquid and solid phases. The dominant removal mechanisms were found to be different for individual pharmaceutical. These results suggest the effectiveness of introduction of the lab-scale biological treatment system for development of a new solution for discharge of pharmaceuticals from hospital.

Pharmaceutical concentrations and antimicrobial activity using hypersusceptible <i>Escherichia coli</i> lacking TolC component of multidrug efflux system in the Ayase River in Japan

“…Since high temperatures and strong solar irradiation were observed from May to September (Japan Meteorological Agency, 2017), it was considered that the pharmaceutical concentrations decreased due to microbial and solar decomposition in the summer season. However, previous research has shown that carbamazepine in sewage is hardly decomposed by bacteria (Nakada et al, 2007;Azuma et al, 2018) and that acetaminophen is hardly decomposed by sunlight (Kawabata et al, 2013), indicating that there are other reasons behind the seasonal variation in pharmaceutical concentrations. However, non-ionic surfactants and nonylphenols in Ayase River water during the non-irrigation season were reported to be higher than those during the irrigation season, and it was speculated that the reason for this was the decrease in agricultural wastewater discharge during the non-irrigated season (Yamazaki et al, 2000(Yamazaki et al, , 2001.…”

A sustainable approach for the removal methods and analytical determination methods of antiviral drugs from water/wastewater: A review

“…The adsorption capacity decreased with increasing sludge aging [58] . Also, Azuma et al (2018) stated that the degradation of antiviral drugs in activated sludge is associated with log K d value which is the solid-water partition coefficient [81] .…”

Distribution of Anticancer Drugs in River Waters and Sediments of the Yodo River Basin, Japan

“…However, its insufficient ability to eliminate anticancer drugs at STPs, as described above, necessitates the introduction of additional post-treatment technologies. Importance of such an advanced water treatment systems at STPs is becoming widely recognized [78][79][80], because of high power for removing not only PPCPs but also other chemicals such as EDCs [81], persistent organic pollutants (POPs) [82], bacterial pathogens, and viruses [83].…”