Urban wastewater treatment plants (UWTPs) are among the main sources of antibiotics' release into various compartments of the environment worldwide. The aim of the present paper is to critically ...review the fate and removal of various antibiotics in wastewater treatment, focusing on different processes (i.e. biological processes, advanced treatment technologies and disinfection) in view of the current concerns related to the induction of toxic effects in aquatic and terrestrial organisms, and the occurrence of antibiotics that may promote the selection of antibiotic resistance genes and bacteria, as reported in the literature. Where available, estimations of the removal of antibiotics are provided along with the main treatment steps. The removal efficiency during wastewater treatment processes varies and is mainly dependent on a combination of antibiotics' physicochemical properties and the operating conditions of the treatment systems. As a result, the application of alternative techniques including membrane processes, activated carbon adsorption, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), and combinations of them, which may lead to higher removals, may be necessary before the final disposal of the effluents or their reuse for irrigation or groundwater recharge.
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► Urban wastewaters are the main sources of antibiotics' release in the environment. ► The removal efficiency of treatment processes toward antibiotics is presented. ► Treatments discussed include biological and chemical processes. ► The removal efficiency is dependent on antibiotics’ physicochemical properties. ► The removal efficiency is dependent on the treatment process operating conditions.
Urbanization is a revolutionary and necessary step for the development of nations. However, with development emanates its drawback i.e., generation of a huge amount of wastewater. The existence of ...diverse types of nutrient loads and toxic compounds in wastewater can reduce the pristine nature of the ecosystem and adversely affects human and animal health. The conventional treatment system reduces most of the chemical contaminants but their removal efficiency is low. Thus, microalgae-based biological wastewater treatment is a sustainable approach for the removal of nutrient loads from wastewater. Among various microalgae,
Tetraselmis
sp. is a robust strain that can remediate industrial, municipal, and animal-based wastewater and reduce significant amounts of nutrient loads and heavy metals. The produced biomass contains lipids, carbohydrates, and pigments. Among them, carbohydrates and lipids can be used as feedstock for the production of bioenergy products. Moreover, the usage of a photobioreactor (PBR) system improves biomass production and nutrient removal efficiency. Thus, the present review comprehensively discusses the latest studies on
Tetraselmis
sp. based wastewater treatment processes, focusing on the use of different bioreactor systems to improve pollutant removal efficiency. Moreover, the applications of
Tetraselmis
sp. biomass, advancement and research gap such as immobilized and co-cultivation have also been discussed. Furthermore, an insight into the harvesting of
Tetraselmis
biomass, effects of physiological, and nutritional parameters for their growth has also been provided. Thus, the present review will broaden the outlook and help to develop a sustainable and feasible approach for the restoration of the environment.
Antibiotics are among the most successful group of pharmaceuticals used for human and veterinary therapy. However, large amounts of antibiotics are released into municipal wastewater due to ...incomplete metabolism in humans or due to disposal of unused antibiotics, which finally find their ways into different natural environmental compartments. The emergence and rapid spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) has led to an increasing concern about the potential environmental and public health risks. ARB and antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) have been detected extensively in wastewater samples. Available data show significantly higher proportion of antibiotic resistant bacteria contained in raw and treated wastewater relative to surface water. According to these studies, the conditions in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are favourable for the proliferation of ARB. Moreover, another concern with regards to the presence of ARB and ARGs is their effective removal from sewage. This review gives an overview of the available data on the occurrence of ARB and ARGs and their fate in WWTPs, on the biological methods dealing with the detection of bacterial populations and their resistance genes, and highlights areas in need for further research studies.
► Review on the fate of antibiotic resistant bacteria in wastewater treatment plants. ► Methods on the identification of antibiotic resistant bacteria and genes in wastewater. ► Effect of disinfection on antibiotic resistant bacteria during wastewater treatment.
Pharmaceutical pollution of the world's rivers Wilkinson, John L; Boxall, Alistair B A; Kolpin, Dana W ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
02/2022, Letnik:
119, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ ...different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world's rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) was used to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Moreover, an economic evaluation was also addressed using life cycle ...cost (LCC) approach. Emissions associated with electricity production for operating the WWTPs, emissions from the treated effluent and hazardous heavy metals emissions have been identified as the main contributors to the overall environmental impact. Among the WWTPs considered, soil biotechnology (SBT) obtained the lowest environmental impact in all the evaluated impact categories, except for eutrophication potential. While the aerated lagoons (AL) system presented the worst results due to the high electricity and chemicals consumption. Moreover, the results obtained from the evaluation of benefit from treated effluent reuse clearly indicate that there is a drop in the toxicity potential when the rate of effluent reuse is increased. On the other hand, the present worth of SBT was estimated to be Rs. 40 million/millions of litres per day (MLD) which is the highest as compared to other technologies. Membrane bioreactor (MBR) is the second highest (Rs. 24.7 million/MLD), which is mainly contributed by civil, electro-mechanical and membrane cost. The results of LCA and LCC provide specific insights about the factors which play a major role during the life cycle of wastewater treatment technology and its associated impacts.
Membrane aerated biofilm bioreactors (MABRs), a relatively new innovation in biological wastewater treatment technology, have received much attention in recent years. In the past two decades, the ...emphasis has focused on exploring and verifying the advantages of MABRs for wastewater treatment through experimental and modeling studies. In-depth fundamental understanding of MABRs and their design have been achieved. Pilot-scale studies and full-scale applications of MABRs have been reported. MABR technology has been successfully applied for high strength industrial wastewater treatment and refractory pollutant removal, simultaneous removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and nitrogen (N) in municipal wastewater treatment, and retrofitting of existing activated sludge plants. The advantages of MABRs include high oxygen transfer efficiency, effective COD/N removal, improved energy efficiency, and the relative ease in scale-up. The importance of biofilm thickness control, potential for new applications, and design of low-cost and high efficient membrane materials and modules call for further studies to advance MABR technology. Recent advances in physico-chemical properties of membranes, factors affecting MABR performance, microbial communities, and modeling in MABRs are systematically reviewed. A number of important challenges and unexplored opportunities remain pointing in the direction of future research and development needs.
Highlights
MABR technology has reached to pilot-scale and full-scale applications for wastewater treatment.
Significant processes in fundamental understanding of process design and applications of MABR has achieved.
Process, microbiological, and membrane factors affecting MABR performance are reviewed and discussed.
Biofilm thickness control, new membrane materials and module design, and new applications of MABRs call for further studies.
: Water is a scarce resource and is considered a fundamental pillar of sustainable development. The modern development of society requires more and more drinking water. For this cleaner wastewater, ...treatments are key factors. Among those that exist, advanced oxidation processes are being researched as one of the sustainable solutions. The main objective of this manuscript is to show the scientific advances in this field.
: In this paper, a systematic analysis of all the existing scientific works was carried out to verify the evolution of this line of research.
: It was observed that the three main countries researching this field are China, Spain, and the USA. Regarding the scientific collaboration between countries, three clusters were detected-one of Spain, one of China and the USA, and one of Italy and France. The publications are grouped around three types of water: industrial, urban, and drinking. Regarding the research, 15 clusters identified from the keywords analyzed the advanced oxidation process (alone or combined with biological oxidation) with the type of wastewater and the target pollutant, removal of which is intended. Finally, the most important scientific communities or clusters detected in terms of the number of published articles were those related to the elimination of pollutants of biological origin, such as bacteria, and of industrial nature, such as pesticides or pharmaceutical products.
In Chinese industrial parks, the centralized wastewater treatment plant (CWWTP) is an essential shared infrastructure to further purify the in‐plant pretreated industrial wastewater. Most of the ...contaminants, such as organic matter, are removed by in‐plant wastewater treatment to guarantee the safety and efficiency of the CWWTP. Carbon source shortages are common in the denitrification process in CWWTPs, and such issues are generally solved by adding external carbon sources, such as glucose. Some biodegradable organics that are abundant in industrial wastewater, such as food production wastewater, can be utilized as the external carbon sources for denitrification. This study proposed an industrial symbiosis‐based model to optimize the wastewater treatment system in industrial parks by reusing organic matter in food wastewaters as the external carbon source for advanced treatment processes in CWWTPs. A case study of a Chinese eco‐industrial park is investigated to verify the technical and economic feasibility of the model. The case study indicates that the overall cost‐savings potential of the model is approximately 6.55 million Chinese Yuan (CNY) per year, accounting for approximately 20% of the annual operating cost of the CWWTP. Additionally, the mitigation potential of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is 5977 t CO2‐eq per year, accounting for 1.7% of the GHG emissions of the original model. Furthermore, potential barriers to implementing the IS model and the relevant policy implications are discussed.
Petroleum, coal, and natural gas reservoir were depleting continuously due to an increase in industrialization, which enforced study to identify alternative sources. The next option is the renewable ...resources which are most important for energy purpose coupled with environmental problem reduction. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have become a promising approach to generate cleaner and more sustainable electrical energy. The involvement of various disciplines had been contributing to enhancing the performance of the MFCs. This review covers the performance of MFC along with different wastewater as a substrate in terms of treatment efficiencies as well as for energy generation. Apart from this, effect of various parameters and use of different nanomaterials for performance of MFC were also studied. From the current study, it proves that the use of microbial fuel cell along with the use of nanomaterials could be the waste and energy-related problem-solving approach. MFC could be better in performances based on optimized process parameters for handling any wastewater from industrial process.
Olive mill wastewater (OMW) appears as an interesting and innovative natural alternative to synthetic chelating agents of iron in solar photo-Fenton processes at circumneutral pH due to its high ...polyphenol content, valorizing wastewater typically found in sunny countries. The aim of this work was the reuse of OMW for the elimination of other recalcitrant microcontaminants: terbutryn, chlorfenvinphos, diclofenac, and pentachlorophenol. Highly diluted OMW (1:1500) was employed to keep the iron in solution at circumneutral pH. Eighty percent degradation of microcontaminants was achieved, although the reaction rate was slow compared with conventional photo-Fenton process, due to Fe-polyphenol complex instability at neutral pH. At pH around 4 (considerable superior to the photo-Fenton optimal pH 2.8), Fe-polyphenol complex stability was promoted: solar UV energy required was 25 times lower to reach the objective of 80% microcontaminants degradation, which was attained in a single step, without coupling with other processes. Operating photo-Fenton at slightly acidic pH was proposed for the first time for possible reuse of treated wastewater in crop irrigation, requiring minimum pH adjustment by simply mixing it with natural wastewater.
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