via Swansea University
A research team at Swansea University have developed a new method for fast removal and detection of wastewater pollutants that come from everyday pharmaceuticals like paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin, which could help minimise their impact on the environment.
The all-female team of (bio)chemists from the Medical School, in collaboration with Biotage, an international company with presence in in Ystrad Mynach, have published the research in Analytical Science Advances. The research outlines how they successfully developed a single process for separating and quantifying a wide range of different pharmaceuticals and chemicals from personal care products found in everyone’s bathrooms that can end up in wastewater sludge and blood plasma. The new method will speed up our understanding of which pollutants may be released and could help reduce the negative effects they have on the wider environment.
First author Dr Rachel Townsend said: “Many people don’t really think about what happens to these drugs once they’ve taken them. Like any foodstuff, once a drug has been taken, it is excreted from the body and ends up in a wastewater treatment plant.
“It was thought that pharmaceuticals were degraded during the treatment process, but research has shown this isn’t the case. And of course this becomes a problem as the treated wastewater is released into water courses such as rivers and streams, while 80% of treated sludge is also recycled back onto agricultural land as fertiliser and potentially onto future food crops.”
There have been global reports of the adverse effects of pharmaceuticals on the animal kingdom. Diclofenac, for example, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory has caused multiple species of vulture in Asia to become critically endangered, while the Indian long-billed vulture and red-headed vulture populations have decreased by 97-99%. The female contraceptive pill has caused the feminisation of male fish, which has caused populations to decrease rapidly over 2 years. There are also concerns that that sludge used in agriculture could impact on human health too.
The team have pioneered one process that uses a sample preparation method, called QuEChERS, with mass spectrometric detection. Using this process, they were able to detect, extract and quantify a range of pharmaceutical compounds and personal care products from a variety of sources, such as wastewater sludge, where previously multiple extraction methods were needed, making it more efficient in time and resources needed.
The researchers could then get a clearer picture of the factors controlling how antimicrobial resistance develops and spreads in the community, and this knowledge has the potential to help safeguard water quality, the environment and health.
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Removal and detection of wastewater pollutants
- How a sponge could help clean up microplastics in Chicago and the Great Lakes
Dravid said the sponge gets coated in the pollutant-attracting coating the same way clothing gets dyed different colors. “The same approach, just take the sponge, dip it in our nanotechnology — we ...
- Spectrochimica acta. Part A, Molecular and biomolecular spectroscopy
A comparative study of novel spectrophotometric methods for simultaneous determination of nitroaniline isomers in their binary mixtures with highly severe overlapping spectra. Interaction between ...
- European Farmland May Be the Biggest Global Reservoir of Microplastics
In a study published in the journal Environmental Pollution, the team estimate that microplastics ... Ouro P. Microplastics removal from a primary settler tank in a wastewater treatment plant and ...
- The Ocean's Biggest Garbage Pile Is Full of Floating Life
French swimmer Benoit Lecomte swam more than 300 nautical miles through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to raise awareness about marine plastic pollution. As he swam, he was often surprised to find ...
- Wastewater monitoring took off during the COVID-19 pandemic – and here's how it could help head off future outbreaks
wastewater monitoring can detect a small number of infected people. That can sound the alarm that targeted clinical testing is in order to identify infected people for isolation. Early detection, ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Removal and detection of wastewater pollutants
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Pharmaceuticals pollution
- Global Hibiscus Extract Market To Be Driven By The Thriving Pharmaceutical Sector In The Forecast Period Of 2022-2027
The new report by Expert Market Research titled, ‘Global Hibiscus Extract Market Size, Share, Price, Trends, Growth, Report and Forecast 2022-2027’, gives ...
- Ventilator Market is expected to foresee steady growth by 2027|CAGR: 8%| UnivDatos Market Insights
A comprehensive overview of the Ventilator Market is recently added by UnivDatos Market Insights to its humongous database. The Ventilator market report has ...
- Lawsuit: EPA Must Protect Manatees From Water Pollution
Three conservation groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today for failing to protect manatees and sea turtles from water pollution in Florida. Over half of the more than 1,000 manatee ...
- Guest column: Noise pollution within Memphis is rampant
Crosstown High School 9th grades wrote this column addressing the noise and air pollution in Memphis for their capstone class.
- Pesticides Used in Farmed Fish Operations Threaten Health of Swimmers
A December 2021 report commissioned by the trade group Salmon Scotland concludes that the use of pesticide products by the nation’s salmon farms represents potential risk to “wild” swimmers (those who ...