Hospital-based waste treatment for high-value drugs recovery

一种去除造影剂的新方法涉及利用电化学技术和低分子量凝胶的组合。低分子量凝胶（LMWGs）是一种很有前途的新型废水处理材料。这些与聚合物水凝胶系统明显不同，因为它们不包含结构之间的物理化学键。在文献中有关于聚合物水凝胶去除各种污染物的卓越能力的报道。然而，关于lmwg的报道较少。建议的任务分为三个部分。第一项研究是操纵造影剂，以评估它们在电化学上形成凝胶的潜力。第二种方法是将污染物纳入现有的低分子量空气净化器。这两种方法都会导致污染物形成水凝胶。凝胶/污染物的形成可以很容易地从水中去除，由于这些低分子水工作组的性质，很容易破坏凝胶/污染物的形成，然后再利用这两种成分。电化学研究的第三部分将产生一种方法来逆转污染物/凝胶混合物（通常通过使用简单的pH开关）。这将导致从水中去除污染物，从而有能力回收高价值的药物。由于大量的参数可以通过电化学控制，因此也可以探索从含有多种污染物的废水中选择性去除不同污染物。这个创新的项目将提供一种新的污染物药物提取方法，既可以妥善处理，也可以回收利用。

A new novel approach for the removal of contrast agents involves utilising a combination of electrochemical techniques and low molecular weight gelators. Low molecular weight gels (LMWGs) are a promising new class of materials for treatment of wastewater. These differ distinctly from polymer hydrogel systems as they do not contain physical chemical bonds between the structures. Within the literature there are reports in the excellent ability of polymer hydrogels to remove a wide and diverse range of pollutants. However, there are fewer reports into LMWGs. The proposed tasks are broken into three sections. The first investigation is to manipulate contrast media to assess their potential to form gels electrochemically. The second is to incorporate pollutants into existing LMWGs. Both approaches will result in the pollutants forming a hydrogel. The formations of the gel/pollutant can easily be removed from the water and due to the nature of these LMWG, it is easily possible to destroy the gel/pollutant formation and then reuse both components. The third section of the electrochemical investigation will be producing a method to reverse the pollutant/gel mixtures (normally by using a simple pH switch). This will result in the removal of pollutants from water and consequently the ability to recover the high value pharmaceutical. Due to the vast number of parameters that can be controlled electrochemically it is also possible to explore the selective removal of different pollutants from wastewaters containing multiple contaminants. This innovative project would provide a novel method of contaminant drug extraction for either proper disposal or recycling.