EAPSI: Studying advanced treatment methods for removal of pharmaceuticals from sewage effluent

在天然水源中发现的药物的丰度随着其应用和生产的增加而增加。在环境中，药物有可能是有毒的，增加微生物耐药性，并产生其他不可预见的环境不良影响。城市污水处理厂的流出物是环境中药品的主要污染源。因此，研究不同的深度处理方法来进一步去除废水中的药物是至关重要的。这项研究将与中国科学院废水研究专家强志民博士合作，确定通过高级处理工艺从污水中去除典型药物的最适用方法。药物在环境中引起的毒性、微生物耐药性和不可预见的不良影响，需要对高级氧化过程（AOPs）中每种目标污染物的减排、降解途径和毒性变化进行全面研究。所选择的AOPs包括3种基于O3和UV的技术（如O3/H2O2， UV/O3和UV/H2O2），这些技术在有效去除污水废水中的药物方面具有很大的潜力。本研究选取污水中常检出的6种药物，包括磺胺嘧啶（SDZ）、磺胺甲恶唑（SMX）、甲氧苄啶（TMP）、美托洛尔（MET）、罗红霉素（ROX）和咖啡因（CAF）。将研究AOPs对这些药物的抑制作用，并通过液相色谱-飞行时间质谱（LC/Q-TOF-MS）鉴定其降解副产物，以提出降解途径。此外，本项目将对不同AOPs的污染物去除效率、能耗和运行因素进行评估，以确定最适用的方法。该奖项由国家科学基金会与中国科技部共同资助。

The abundance of pharmaceuticals found in natural water sources has increased as their applications and production has increased. In the environment, pharmaceuticals have the potential to be toxic, increase microbial resistance, and yield other unforeseen environmental adverse effects. Effluents of municipal sewage treatment plants represent a major pollution source of pharmaceuticals in the environment. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to study different advanced treatment methods to further remove pharmaceuticals in sewage effluent. In collaboration with Dr. Zhimin Qiang, an expert in wastewater research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, this study will determine the most applicable method to remove typical pharmaceuticals from sewage effluent by advanced treatment processes. The toxicity, microbial resistance, and unforeseen adverse effects in the environment, induced by pharmaceuticals, necessitate a comprehensive study of abatement, degradation pathways, and toxicity changes of each target pollutant during advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). The selected AOPs include three O3-based and UV-based (e.g. O3/H2O2, UV/O3, and UV/H2O2) technologies, which have great potentials to effectively remove pharmaceuticals from sewage effluent. Six frequently detected pharmaceuticals in sewage effluent, including sulfadiazine (SDZ), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), trimethoprim (TMP), metoprolol (MET), roxithromycin (ROX), and caffeine (CAF), will be selected for this study. The abatement of these pharmaceuticals by the AOPs will be studied, along with their degradation byproducts identified by liquid chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC/Q-TOF-MS) to propose degradation pathways. In addition, this project will evaluate the pollutant removal efficiency, energy consumption, and operation factors of the different AOPs, to determine the most applicable method. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.