Handout

ABW2

12.04.12

Drug decomposition in waste water treatment plants entirely?

Information about drugs:
Following groups of drugs are at most in the wastewater and cant be degradable: Betablocker x-raying contrast medium Antibiotics o Against infections with zooplankton (e.g. Bacterium) o They stop their essential metabolism Hormones o EE2 (active substance of the pill) Also analgesics and lipid-lowering agents Drugs should make us healthy and so they have to be: Very stable that they are storable for a long time easy to administer have to be stable against some special enzymes and dont hydrolyse in the stomach so that they get to the place, where they have to effect they have to be persistent and in aqueous liquids highly mobile

How drugs get into the water:

Pharmaceuticals get into the water through their consumption: o Humans: - Drugs are flushed away in the toilet or arent disposed probably, instead people put them into the domestic garbage - When people on medication go to the toilet they excrete whatever the body does not absorb and any metabolized by products of the medicament is going into the toilets. - Hospital wastewater is contaminated with lots of drugs. Antibiotics, cytostatics, psychotropics and x-raying contrast medium are the biggest polluter and waste water treatment plants arent getting out all of the ingredients o Animals: - Animal-antibiotics get into the excrements and through the slurry on the fields. The antibiotics in the slurry get into the surface water and ground water. The biggest antibiotic use is for intensive livestock farming. - Antibiotics and vermicides are also used in fish-farming. There the drugs get directly into the water.

Sludge from the waste water treatment plants is used as fertilizer for the fields. As there are arrears of drugs in it, it is the same problem as with the slurry of the animals.
Pharmaceutical companies - Their industrial waste water transport pharmaceutical arrears into the sewage system. Old sewer systems

Handout

ABW2

12.04.12

How to avoid that drugs get into the water

Pharmaceutical Companies should create biodegradable drugs. Reduction of the input of drugs in our water at the sources - The return of non used drugs to Pharmacies for an environmentally suitable disposal - Directly treating of purified wastewater from the toilets in hospitals before it ever reaches the sewage plant. There is the idea of separate toilets which contains urine separation. - Better treatments in waste water treatment plants

Effects on the environment:

The impact on the environment of drugs in the waste-water is fatal. Animals suffer from different genetic damages whereas humans would need such high concentrations that is has no impact on them. As long as humans are not concerned, pharmaceutical industries do not really care about the drugs in the waste-water. Different drugs are guilty for different damages: Diclofenac (active component in Voltaren): extreme high concentration in the water. 10.000 birds died, because they ate the meat of dead cows, which drank the water polluted with Diclofenac. Ethinylestradiol (EE2, in the Pill): eviration of fish; Mollusca change their sex Experts think EE2 in the waste-water could have an impact on humans fertility, especially on the lower production of sperms. Antidepressants contain serotonin, which changes the behaviour patterns in a way that crabs swim to the light instead away. This means they are easily eaten by birds or fish. Another fact is that creeks contain a higher concentration of drugs than rivers do. The reason is that filter plants mostly use smaller rivers for receiving waters and the waste-water is normally lead into the same creek again.

Purification of the waste water in waste water treatment plants:

Chemical processes
1. UV-radiation with following ozone oxidation
When exposed to sunlight, germs are killed and bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms are prevented from spreading. With the following oxygenation ozone and oxygen-radicals are produced as oxidants and the organic materials can completely oxidize to water, carbon dioxide and polymers. Ozone the active form of oxygen: colorless gas, which smells very penetrating

Handout

ABW2

12.04.12

Ozone is a very instable molecule and therefore a good oxidant. The measure for the strength of oxidants is the redox potential. The potential of ozone: +2, 07 (very high) The chemical equation: 2 O3 3 O2

2. Activated carbon filtration

1 = untreated water, 2 = pure water, 4 = inflow dishwater, 5 = outflow dishwater, 7 = nozzle, 9 = activated carbon, 10 = funnel with spelt water, 11 = ventilation Principle a) Filtration of unsolved mechanical particles b) Adsorption of particles because activated carbon has a large surface removing substances can be absorbed and enriched from the carbon mass

Problems
1. Funding 2. No prescription The most states dont prescribe this purifications because currently the pollution with drugs isnt threatening (for humans) 3. Hazardous waste The hazardous sludge has to be dried and combusted in a special incineration plant

Mechanical process
Reverse Osmosis
Polluted Water is pressured through a semi-permeable membrane. Semi-permeable means, that just some particular materials can diffuse through this membrane. They have to be extremely small to get through this microscopic thin pores. The water molecule is the smallest molecule. Because of this it is the only molecule to diffuse through the membrane pores in general. Other molecules like nitrates, minerals, heavy metals, salts, pesticides or drug residues are to big to get through the membrane and will be hold back entirely. The inflowing water spills them away. So every Reverse osmosis produces a part of pure water and waste water. Depending on the efficiency of the plant it varies between 1:3 and 1:10.

International Programms
In Sweden the Stockholm County Concil invented a Risk assessment on pharmaceuticals. Therefore 1100 substances have been examined and as a result, 85% of these substances have an insignificant risk on the environment and even 20% have a potential to bioaccumulate. Furthermore in cooperation with the governmental pharmacy a hazard identification PBT Score a scale from 0-9 according to the chemical, physical and toxicological properties which have impact on the environment was created. And doctors should be sensitized to perscribe substances with an lower scale to patients, if there are similar preparations.

Handout

ABW2

12.04.12

PILLS Pharmaceutical input and elimination from local sources

PILLS is a project in the context of the Interreg Programme of Northwest Europe as a cooperation between Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Luxembourg and France. In this research project, pharmaceutical substances in hospital waste waters were investigated. It is build up in a four step program, (1) Characterisation of the pharmaceutically burdened waste water, (2) Design, construction and operation of waste water treatment plants which includes advanced treatment technologies, (3) Assessment of different advanced treatment technologies and (4) Communication of the issues and of the results of the project. Therefore 4 waste water treatment plants were built, 2 full-scale plants in Germany and the Netherlands, which collect the whole waste water from the hospital and 2 smaller pilot plants in Switzerland and Luxembourg to treat partial flows of the hospitals. For this reason conventional waste water treatment processes are applied in the PILLS plants which are complemented by advanced techniques like UV irradiation, ozonation, reversed osmosis or adsorption with active carbon. Sometimes there is a post treatment necessary, because UV irradiation and ozonation may generate toxic by-products. Because this projects runs until 2012 there are no final results available.

POSEIDON - Assessment of Technologies for the Removal of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care
Products in Sewage and Drinking Water Facilities to Improve the Indirect Potable Water Reuse In order to determine the efficiency for elimination of Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), as a major innovative step, advanced techniques such as membrane technology and effluent ozonation were tested to be combined with various conventional techniques such as activated sludge and biofilter systems. Concerning to the final report of POSEIDON, for most of the PPCPs such as antibiotics only the advanced technologies lead to an efficient removal. However for waste water, ozonation is the most promising treatment process, due to its cost effectiveness, while for drinking water production also the other advanced techniques are an option.