Biodegradation and Removal of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Treatment Systems: a Review

Biodegradation (2009) 20:441–466 DOI 10.1007/s10532-008-9237-8

REVIEW PAPER

Biodegradation and removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in treatment systems: a review

Kathryn M. Onesios Æ Jim T. Yu Æ Edward J. Bouwer

Received: 10 January 2008 / Accepted: 17 November 2008 / Published online: 28 December 2008 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have been the focus of much recent research as concerns rise about their occurrence in bodies of water worldwide. In an effort to characterize the risk and determine the prevalence of these micropollutants in lakes and rivers, many researchers are examining PPCP removal from impaired water during wastewater treatment and water recycling (soil passage) processes. Biodegradation studies and projects considering combinations of biodegradation and other removal processes have been conducted over a wide range of compound categories and therapeutic classes, as well as across different systems and scales of study. This review summarizes the extent of PPCP removal observed in these various systems. Keywords Biodegradation Á Personal care products Á Pharmaceuticals Á Wastewater treatment

Abbreviations HRT Hydraulic retention time MBR Membrane bioreactor NSAID Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug PPCP Pharmaceutical and personal care product SBR Sequencing batch reactor SRT Solids retention time WWTP Wastewater treatment plant

Introduction Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have become the center of much current environmental research. These ‘‘emerging contaminants’’ have been known to be present in the environment for decades, from sources such as wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent and confined animal feeding operation run-off (Daughton and Ternes 1999). Yet it has only been within the past 10–15 years that analytical methods have been developed to detect emerging contaminants at environmentally-relevant trace...