Department for Health Evidence, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboudumc, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboudumc, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Chemosphere. 2022 Sep;303(Pt 2):135022. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135022. Epub 2022 May 23.
Pharmaceutical residues are released in the aquatic environment due to incomplete removal from wastewater. With the presence of multiple chemicals in sewage waters, contaminants may adversely affect the effectiveness of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). In certain cases, discharged metabolites are transformed back into their pristine structure and become bioactive again. Other compounds are persistent and can withstand conventional wastewater treatment. When WWTP effluents are released in surface waters, pristine and persistent chemicals can affect the aquatic environment. To complement WWTPs and circumvent incomplete removal of unwanted chemicals or pharmaceuticals, on-site wastewater treatment can contribute to their removal. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are very powerful techniques for the abatement of pharmaceuticals, however, under certain circumstances reactive toxic by-products can be produced. We studied the application of on-site AOPs in a laboratory setting. It is expected that treatment at the contamination source can eliminate the worst polluters. Thermal plasma and UV/HO oxidation were applied on simulation matrices, Milli-Q and synthetic sewage water spiked with 10 different pharmaceuticals in a range of 0.1 up to 2400 μg/L. In addition, untreated end-of-pipe hospital effluent was also subjected to oxidative treatment. The matrices were activated for 180 min and added to cultured HeLa cells. The cells were 24 h and 48 h exposed at 37 °C and subsequently markers for oxidative stress and viability were measured. During the UV/HO treatment periods no toxicity was observed. After thermal plasma activation of Milli-Q water (150 and 180 min) toxicity was observed. Direct application of thermal plasma treatment in hospital sewage water caused elimination of toxic substances. The low cytotoxicity of treated pharmaceutical residues is likely to become negligible if plasma pre-treated on-site wastewater is further diluted with other sewage water streams, before reaching the WWTP. Our study suggests that AOPs may be promising technologies to remove a substantial portion of pharmaceutical components by degradation at the source. Further studies will have to be performed to verify the feasibility of upscaling this technology from the benchtop to practice.
由于废水处理不完全，药物残留会释放到水生环境中。由于污水中存在多种化学物质，污染物可能会影响废水处理厂（WWTP）的效率。在某些情况下，排出的代谢物会转化回其原始结构并重新具有生物活性。其他化合物则具有持久性，能够承受常规的废水处理。当 WWTP 废水排放到地表水中时，原始和持久的化学物质会影响水生环境。为了补充 WWTP 并避免去除不需要的化学物质或药物的不完全去除，可以采用现场废水处理来促进其去除。高级氧化工艺（AOPs）是去除药物的非常有效技术，但是在某些情况下可能会产生反应性有毒副产物。我们研究了现场 AOPs 在实验室环境中的应用。预计在污染源处进行处理可以消除最严重的污染者。热等离子体和 UV/HO 氧化应用于模拟基质，Milli-Q 和含有 10 种不同药物的合成污水，浓度范围为 0.1 至 2400μg/L。此外，还对未经处理的医院末端废水进行了氧化处理。基质被激活 180 分钟，并添加到培养的 HeLa 细胞中。细胞在 37°C 下暴露 24 小时和 48 小时，随后测量氧化应激和活力的标志物。在 UV/HO 处理期间未观察到毒性。在 Milli-Q 水的热等离子体激活（150 和 180 分钟）后观察到毒性。直接应用热等离子体处理医院污水会消除有毒物质。如果在到达 WWTP 之前，用等离子体预处理现场废水进一步与其他污水流混合稀释，则处理后的药物残留的低细胞毒性可能变得微不足道。我们的研究表明，AOPs 可能是一种很有前途的技术，可以通过在源头降解去除药物成分的很大一部分。还需要进一步的研究来验证将这项技术从实验室规模扩展到实际应用的可行性。
