Key Laboratory of Environment Remediation and Ecological Health, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control on Chemical Process, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China.
Environ Pollut. 2020 Nov;266(Pt 2):115269. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.115269. Epub 2020 Aug 15.
β-blockers are a class of medications widely used to treat cardiovascular disorders, including abnormal heart rhythms, high blood pressure, and angina pectoris. The prevalence of β-blockers has generated a widespread concern on their potential chronic toxicity on aquatic organisms, highlighting the necessity of comprehensive studies on their environmental distribution, fate, and toxicity. This review summarizes the up-to-date knowledge on the source, global distribution, analytical methods, transformation, and toxicity of β-blockers. Twelve β-blockers have been detected in various environmental matrices, displaying significant temporal and spatial variations. β-blockers can be reduced by 0-99% at wastewater treatment plants, where secondary processes contribute to the majority of removal. Advanced oxidation processes, e.g., photocatalysis and combined UV/persulfate can transform β-blockers more rapidly and completely than conventional wastewater treatment processes, but the transformation products could be more toxic than the parent compounds. Propranolol, especially its (S)-enantiomer, exhibits the highest toxicity among all β-blockers. Future research towards improved detection methods, more efficient and cost-effective removal techniques, and more accurate toxicity assessment is needed to prioritize β-blockers for environmental monitoring and control worldwide.
β-受体阻滞剂是一类广泛用于治疗心血管疾病的药物，包括心律失常、高血压和心绞痛等。β-受体阻滞剂的广泛使用引起了人们对其潜在慢性毒性对水生生物的广泛关注，强调了对其环境分布、归宿和毒性进行综合研究的必要性。本综述总结了β-受体阻滞剂的来源、全球分布、分析方法、转化和毒性的最新知识。已经在各种环境基质中检测到 12 种β-受体阻滞剂，表现出显著的时间和空间变化。β-受体阻滞剂在污水处理厂的去除率为 0-99%，其中二级处理过程对去除率的贡献最大。高级氧化工艺，如光催化和联合 UV/过硫酸盐，比传统的污水处理工艺更能快速、完全地转化β-受体阻滞剂，但转化产物的毒性可能比母体化合物更高。普萘洛尔，特别是其（S）-对映体，在所有β-受体阻滞剂中表现出最高的毒性。未来需要针对改进的检测方法、更高效和更具成本效益的去除技术以及更准确的毒性评估开展研究，以便在全球范围内优先对β-受体阻滞剂进行环境监测和控制。
