Recent Technologies for The Elimination of Pharmaceutical Compounds from aqueous solutions: A review

Abstract

Water pollution is a major environmental issue that has a wide range of impacts on ecosystems, human health, and the economy. During recent years, pharmaceutical compounds have been considered an emerging water micro-pollutant due to their potential eco-toxicity. Pharmaceuticals, personal care items, steroid hormones, and agrochemicals are synthetic and indigenous products that makeup micropollutants, also known as emerging contaminants. Due to the Corona pandemic (Covid-19), excessive use of antibiotics in addition to the painkillers used in the treatment protocol established by the World Health Organization. Thus, these compounds have become in water sources with higher concentrations. New techniques have been used to remove these environmental pollutants to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). This article provides a critical review of various methods presenting the potential to be applied for removing pharmaceuticals from water. Several processes: adsorption, advanced oxidation processes (photodegradation, photocatalysis, ozonation, Fenton reaction, Wet Air Oxidation, ultraviolet radiation, hydrogen peroxide oxidation), and membrane-based techniques (ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, forward osmosis, membrane distillation) are analyzed, and their performance during removal of pharmaceuticals from water is compared. Moreover, summaries presenting the efficiency of various materials applied during each process are provided. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of each proposed method are summarised and comprehensively discussed.