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The global problem of the presence of human and veterinary pharmaceuticals in the environment is under investigation. Despite the increase in the knowledge of its sources, fates and impacts, the assessment of risks and the derived prevention actions are limited to single cases. The predicted increasing trend in the usage of pharmaceuticals forces the various parties involved to think about comprehensive mitigation actions. There are many areas of daily human life and industrial operations where such actions should take place. Thereby, in the presented review, such actions were summarized and divided into the following groups: A. design, synthesis and production of pharmaceuticals, B. prescription, sales and waste handling, C. control of the sources with advanced technologies. As the total amount of proposed actions was found to be quite high, a ranking according to the term of effects was proposed using the pyramid of needs. The advantages of actions taken in the first steps of the pharmaceutical life cycle (acting on the upstream) over end-of-pipe actions and the application of advanced technologies (the downstream option) were discussed, with reference to expert opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passive sampling is an attractive technique for the long‐term monitoring of pharmaceuticals in the water environment. The reliability of the received results depends on the properly performed calibration, namely the determination of analyte sampling rates. This step can be the source of a systematic error, as the sampling rate values are dependent on the water donor phase parameters. This is especially important for pharmaceuticals, since their chemical characteristics and ionic form change with pH. In this study, the cross‐effect of pH (3, 7, and 9) and salinity (0, 7, and 35 practical salinity unit, using artificial sea water) on the passive sampling of 21 pharmaceuticals (antiparasitics, beta‐blockers, non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs, sulfonamides) was tested. The primarily determined parameter was the sampling rate. In addition, the extraction efficiency, partitioning coefficient, and the concentration of the analytes on the sorbent were calculated. Generally, for the non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs, beta‐blockers, and antiparasitics, the change both in pH and salinity had a negligible impact on the mentioned experimental parameters. In contrast, the extraction of sulfonamides was impacted by both pH and salinity, while lipophilicity was not a decisive parameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Plasma pencil and plasma brush were applied for continuous degradation of antibiotics. • Plasma brush was ≈10 times more effective than the plasma pencil. • Mainly OH, O, O 3 , H 2 O 2 , and HO 2 − are involved in degradation of antibiotics. • Degradation is caused by the O attack to aromatic ring, as found with UPLC-MS/MS. • Antimicrobial properties of plasma brush-treated drugs solution dropped up to 81% High demands of medical and husbandry sectors led to a massive annual production of 100,000 tonnes of various antibiotics on a global scale. Considering that an access to sublethal doses of these pharmaceuticals causes subsequent increase in resistance of virulent human bacterial pathogens, there is a substantial need for development of novel methods and techniques for degradation of antibiotics from aqueous solutions. Here, high-throughput continuous flow plasma pencil and plasma brush methodologies were developed and verified for their applicability for removal of antibiotics from solutions, as estimated by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode-array detection (HPLC-DAD) or ultraperformance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The removal efficiency of drugs treated by the plasma pencil was in the range from 3 to 24%, and was corresponded to with 1.39% to 10.76% losses in the antibacterial properties of the plasma-treated solutions. However, application of a unique plasma brush increased the antibiotics degradation rates significantly, now falling in the range from 29 to 67% that led to 12.06–81.59% decrease in the antimicrobial properties of the plasma-exposed antibiotics solutions. The deviations in the effectiveness of the plasma pencil and the plasma brush methods were assigned with the types and amounts of generated species. Various intermediate degradation products were also detected in the post-plasma solutions, which derived from the oxygen attack to nucleophilic sides of the antibiotic molecules. We assume that such novel high-throughput, continuous flow methodological setups may find application in hospitals as an end-of-pipe technology for routine elimination of pollutants before reaching municipal sewage treatment plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the methodology used for the determination of β-blockers and β-agonists in environmental samples is based mainly on solid-phase extraction (SPE) and gas chromatography or liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection, the available literature data on the applied SPE procedures is rather sparse. In this paper such comparison is presented. Moreover, the usefulness of the eight SPE cartridges for the determination of five β-blockers (acebutolol, atenolol, metoprolol, nadolol, and propranolol) and two β-agonists (salbutamol and terbutaline) in environmental aqueous samples using GC techniques is tested. Among them, three (the trifunction sorbent Strata Screen C, the copolymers LiChrolut EN, and the functionalized copolymer Isolute ENV+) were used for the first time for this purpose. It was confirmed that polystyrene-divinylbenzene-N-vinylpyrrolidone copolymers (PS-DVB-VP, Strata-X, and Oasis HLB cartridges) have a better potential than a cation-exchange sorbent for the extraction of the target drugs from environmental water samples. However, it should be stressed out that the direct application of the tested SPE conditions for the analysis of real environmental water samples is not possible, and such parameters, like volume of loading sample, appropriate solvents for washing and elution steps, and so forth, must be optimized again in order to achieve satisfactory recovery values for the target compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the presence of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in the environment is closely related to municipal wastewater and in consequence to municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) because wastewater is the main way in which these compounds are transferred to the ecosystem. For this reason, the development of cheap, simple but very effective techniques for the removal of such residues from wastewater is very important. In this study, the analysis of the potential of using three new plants: Cyperus papyrus (Papyrus), Lysimachia nemorum (Yellow pimpernel), and Euonymus europaeus (European spindle) by hydroponic cultivation for the removal of 15 selected pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in an MWWTP is presented. In order to obtain the most reliable data, this study was performed using real WWTP conditions and with the determination of the selected analytes in untreated sewage, treated sewage, and in plant materials. For determining the target compounds in plant materials, an Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE)-Solid-Phase Extraction (SPE)-GC-MS(SIM) method was developed and validated. The obtained data proved that the elimination efficiency of the investigated substances from wastewater was in the range of 35.8% for diflunisal to above 99.9% for paracetamol, terbutaline, and flurbiprofen. Lysimachia nemorum was the most effective for the uptake of target compounds among the tested plant species. Thus, the application of constructed wetlands for supporting conventional MWWTPs allowed a significant increase in their removal from the wastewater stream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Two systems were compared for PASSIL and POCIS passive sampler calibration. • The lowest R s were obtained based using PASSIL in the static renewal system. • The limits of detection were influenced by the calibration technique used. • The TWACs in wastewater were comparable between samplers types. Passive sampling techniques are becoming increasingly popular in monitoring of micropollutants. They are especially important to track semipolar and polar contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals. The proper calibration of passive samplers is the key to obtain accurate time-weighted average concentrations (TWAC) of pharmaceuticals in the environment. This paper aims to compare two calibration systems: static renewal and continuous-flow, on the obtained sampling rates of selected pharmaceuticals (atenolol, caffeine, sulfamethoxazole, carbamazepine, naproxen, diclofenac). Two passive sampling techniques were investigated: Passive Sampling by Ionic Liquids (PASSIL) with phosphonium ionic liquid as the receiving phase, and home-made Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Sampler (POCIS). We report the first in-situ trial conducted for the ionic liquid-based sampler in treated wastewater, simultaneously with POCIS deployment. Generally, there was agreement between the TWAC and average concentration of pharmaceuticals from grab samples. For PASSIL the best match was observed with the static renewal calibration system, while for POCIS the use system of calibration had no effect on the agreement of the values. These results show that the calibration system has an impact into accuracy of TWAC measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades an increasing number of studies has been published concerning contamination of aquatic ecosystems with pharmaceuticals. Yet, the distribution of these chemical compounds in aquatic environments raises many questions and uncertainties. Data on the presence of selected pharmaceuticals in the same water bodies varies significantly between different studies. Therefore, since early 1990 s, wild organisms have been used in research on environmental contamination with pharmaceuticals. Indeed, pharmaceutical levels measured in biological matrices may better reflect their overall presence in the aquatic environments as such levels include not only direct exposure of a given organisms to a specific pollutant but also processes such as bioaccumulation and biomagnification. In the present paper, data concerning occurrence of pharmaceuticals in aquatic biota was reviewed. So far, pharmaceuticals have been studied mainly in fish and molluscs, with only a few papers available on crustaceans and macroalgae. The most commonly found pharmaceuticals both in freshwater and marine organisms are antibiotics, antidepressants and NSAIDS while there is no information about the presence of anticancer drugs in aquatic organisms. Furthermore, only single studies were conducted in Africa and Australia. Hence, systematization of up-to-date knowledge, the main aim of this review, is needed for further research targeting. [Display omitted] • The most common drugs in aquatic biota are antibiotics, antidepressants and NSAIDs. • There is lack of studies on anticancer drugs in aquatic organisms. • The presence of pharmaceuticals is most frequently tested in fish, followed by shellfish. • Several works report concentration of metabolites higher than that of primary compound. • Only few papers checked the presence of drugs in biota of "uncontaminated" sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]