Review on mechanisms of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) removal from water and wastewater by ionizing radiation

Abstract

Consumption of PPCPs has been increased with population growth. PPCPs including a diverse group of drugs used in veterinary medicine, agriculture practices, human health, such as painkiller, antibiotics, hormones and etc. Due to the inability of physical treatment processes such as nano-filtration and reverse osmosis and biological process such as activated sludge in decomposition of PPCPs, these types of emerging organic pollutants are released into rivers, lakes, groundwater and even drinking water resources. With the development of new technologies, ionizing radiation is proposed to destroy PPCPs in aquatic environments. Ionizing irradiation is an effective method in removal and mineralization of a wide range of PPCPs and has removal and mineralization efficiencies more than 50% for compounds such as clofibric acid, metoprolol, diphenolic acid, paracetamol, acetylsalicylic acid, acetovanillone, ketoprofen, ibuprofen, diclofenac, sulfamethoxazole and chloramphenicol. For removal of PPCPs with ionizing radiation, identifying intermediate and final products is essential for realizing their removal mechanisms, optimizing their removal efficiency and awareness of stability and toxicity of original compounds and their byproducts. Due to increasing intractable use of drugs, antibiotics and cosmetics on the one hand and the use of activated sludge system for biological refinement in most wastewater refinement plants and the inability of this system to remove emerging pollutants as PPCPs on the other hand, effluents produced in Iran wastewater refineries may contain significant concentrations of PPCPs. Therefore, a national research is needed for the removal of PPCPs and other organic pollutants by ionizing radiation in future studies

Keywords

• ionizing radiation
• nuclear technology
• organic contaminants
• ppcps