Drug residues

THE USE OF MEDICAMENTS AND ORGANIC CHEMICALS INCREASES

On the European market only, we can find more than 100,000 different organic chemicals. The majority is used with the purpose of improvement of daily life, in the medicine, in food processing and other industrial processes.

 

In the human medicine, about 3000 different pharmaceutical substances of different groups are used in European Union. With the ageing of the population, the use of medicines per inhabitant increases and ranges among elderly population from 5 to 10 sorts of pharmaceutical drugs per individual.

 

medical pills

NEW MICRO-POLLUTANTS CAN BE FOUND IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Today we know that huge amounts of so-called new emerging pollutants, like pharmaceuticals, phytopharmaceuticals, personal care products, pigments and other anthropogenic molecules, are released in water. They can be found at the outflows from treatment plants, in freshwater and groundwater.

Among the most frequently found drug residuals in surface waters and groundwater are e.g. caffeine, diclofenac, ibuprofen, naproxen, benzafibrate, gemfibrozil and carbamazepine.

Drug residuals can be found in waters in mico- or nano-quantities. Their presence and importance have long been underestimated also due to the lack of suitable processes of preparation of samples and analytical methods.

 

Within the LIFE PharmDegrade project, ARHEL and Faculty of Pharmacy will put a great attention to the development of analytical methods for the detection of low concentrations of pollutants in waters with the stress on residuals of pharmaceutical drugs.

THE WAYS DRUG RESIDUALS ENTER INTO WATERS

The medicines can enter into the environment in the following ways:

  • By excretion with the urine and faeces.
  • By washing of the body parts with the topically applied medicines.
  • By direct washing of improperly deposited waste pharmaceutical drugs into waters.

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ARHEL and Faculty of Pharmacy will perform an extensive monitoring of occurrence of drug residuals in wastewaters from nursing homes and hospitals within the LIFE PharmDegrade project.

MEDICINES EXCRETE FROM THE BODY AFTER INTAKE IN VARIOUS FORMS

After the intake, the pharmaceuticals are mostly excreted with urine and faeces. The medicines can be excreted from the body in unchanged from or in the form of metabolites. Metabolites can still remain pharmacologically active, or they can transform back into basic form.

NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF DRUG RESIDUALS IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Today we know that a huge part of micro-pollutants like pharmaceuticals (from human medicine of veterinary medicine) and residuals of personal care products act as hormone disruptors or are directly toxic to organisms.

frog_1

For some of these compounds a harmful effect on human organism has been already proven, especially in the sense of reproductive toxicity (oestrogens), developmental toxicity and carcinogenesis. Damage is shown also in natural ecosystems, where we connect their presence with high certainty to dysfunction of fish and other animal populations in the environment.

Within the LIFE PharmDegrade demonstration project, not only the concentration of residuals of pharmaceuticals in waters, but also their toxicity to various organisms will be assessed.

WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTS CAN BE A SOURCE OF MICRO-POLLUTANTS

Existing treatment plants for municipal wastewaters are designed predominantly for removal of biologically easily degradable organic matters and nutrients (like nitrogen and phosphorous compounds). The residuals of pharmaceuticals can be removed in biological wastewater treatment plants only by biological degradation and binding to sludge. Due to their complex structure, pharmaceuticals need for this kind of degradation a longer treatment time, additional aeration and other additional additives. Their removal is, therefore, often not efficient.

lab glass

In the last years, the presence of residuals of pharmaceuticals, personal care products (like synthetic musk fragrances, compounds from sun protective creams), insects` repellents, etc. have been discovered in the wastewater treatment plants effluents.

ADVANCED WASTEWATER TREATMENT PROCESSES ARE NEEDED

Due to more and more extensive use of pharmaceuticals in medicine, as well as in veterinary medicine and livestock production, represent their residuals and their potentially active metabolites in wastewater more and more serious problem.

The need for development of reliable methods for wastewater treatment is becoming obvious. The new technological approaches should enable efficient removal of micro-pollutants, which are present in traces, but could have a huge negative effect on the environment and human beings.

The aim of the LIFE PharmDegrade project is a construction and demonstration of a pilot plant with a goal to remove the traces of pharmaceuticals in the system of tertiary treatment of municipal wastewater. The chosen technological approach is electrochemical way of water treatment in electrolytic cell with the use of advanced electrode materials (boron doped diamond electrodes and mixed metal electrodes). Pilot plant will be constructed at the source of wastewaters with expected high content of pharmaceuticals (hospitals, nursing homes).