Environmental concerns and bioaccumulation of psychiatric drugs in water bodies - Conventional versus biocatalytic systems of mitigation

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increments in market sales and prescription of medicines commonly used to treat mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, stress, and related problems. The increasing use of these drugs, named psychiatric drugs, has led to their persistence in aquatic sy...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Hernández Martínez, Saúl Antonio, Melchor-Martínez, Elda M., González-González, Reyna Berenice, Sosa-Hernández, Juan Eduardo, Araújo, Rafael G., Rodríguez-Hernández, Jesús Alfredo, Barceló, Damià, Parra-Saldívar, Roberto, Iqbal, Hafiz M. N.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/308503
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/308503
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85153847773
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Wastewaters
Bioaccumulation
Biocatalysis
Bioremediation
Biotransformation
Environmental impact
Psychiatric drugs
Toxicity
http://metadata.un.org/sdg/3
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Descripción
Sumario:The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increments in market sales and prescription of medicines commonly used to treat mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, stress, and related problems. The increasing use of these drugs, named psychiatric drugs, has led to their persistence in aquatic systems (bioaccumulation), since they are recalcitrant to conventional physical and chemical treatments typically used in wastewater treatment plants. An emerging environmental concern caused by the bioaccumulation of psychiatric drugs has been attributed to the potential ecological and toxicological risk that these medicines might have over human health, animals, and plants. Thus, by the application of biocatalysis-assisted techniques, it is possible to efficiently remove psychiatric drugs from water. Biocatalysis, is a widely employed and highly efficient process implemented in the biotransformation of a wide range of contaminants, since it has important differences in terms of catalytic behavior, compared to common treatment techniques, including photodegradation, Fenton, and thermal treatments, among others. Moreover, it is noticed the importance to monitor transformation products of degradation and biodegradation, since according to the applied removal technique, different toxic transformation products have been reported to appear after the application of physical and chemical procedures. In addition, this work deals with the discussion of differences existing between high- and low-income countries, according to their environmental regulations regarding waste management policies, especially waste of the drug industry.