Occurrence and removal of PPCPs in municipal and hospital wastewaters in Greece.

A monitoring study was carried out for the four seasons over 1-year monitoring period (March 2006-March 2007) to investigate the residues of 11 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) belonging to various therapeutic categories. The selected areas of the study were the municipal and hospital wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) of Ioannina city, located in Western Greece. The most common pre-treatment technique for pharmaceuticals, solid-phase extraction (SPE), was used for the isolation and pre-concentration of the target analytes. The samples were screened using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The results of the monitoring study, showed the occurrence of all target compounds in the wastewater samples. Concentrations in the municipal WWTP ranged between 0.3 and 164.4 microg/L in the influent and between 0.5 and 13.9 microg/L in the effluent. In the hospital WWTP concentrations ranged between 0.6 and 70.1 microg/L in the influent and between 0.5 and 14.6 microg/L in the effluent. Mean removal efficiencies ranged between 13% and 97% and between 9% and 87% for municipal and hospital WWTPs, respectively. Removal efficiencies were higher in the municipal WWTP than in the hospital WWTP.