Critical review of technologies for the on-site treatment of hospital wastewater: From conventional to combined advanced processes

This review aims to assess different technologies for the on-site treatment of hospital wastewater (HWW) to remove pharmaceutical compounds (PhCs) as sustances of emerging concern at a bench, pilot, and full scales from 2014 to 2020. Moreover, a rough characterisation of hospital effluents is presen...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pariente, M.I., Segura, Y., Álvarez Torrellas, S., Casas, J.A., Pedro, Z. M. de, Díaz, E., García, J., López Muñoz, M.J., Marugán, J., Mohedano, A. F., Molina, R., Munoz, M., Pablos, C., Perdigón Melón, José Antonio|||0000-0002-5142-7325, Petre Bujan, Alice Luminita|||0000-0002-7196-8479, Rodríguez, J. J., Tobajas, M., Martínez, F.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/60542
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/60542
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115769
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Advanced oxidation processes
Biological wastewater treatment methods
Combined technologies
Hospital wastewater
Pharmaceutical compounds
Química
Chemistry
Descripción
Sumario:This review aims to assess different technologies for the on-site treatment of hospital wastewater (HWW) to remove pharmaceutical compounds (PhCs) as sustances of emerging concern at a bench, pilot, and full scales from 2014 to 2020. Moreover, a rough characterisation of hospital effluents is presented. The main detected PhCs are antibiotics and psychiatric drugs, with concentrations up to 1.1 mg/L. On the one hand, regarding the presented technologies, membrane bioreactors (MBRs) are a good alternative for treating HWW with PhCs removal values higher than 80% in removing analgesics, anti-inflammatories, cardiovascular drugs, and some antibiotics. Moreover, this system has been scaled up to the pilot plant scale. However, some target compounds are still present in the treated effluent, such as psychiatric and contrast media drugs and recalcitrant antibiotics (erythromycin and sulfamethoxazole). On the other hand, ozonation effectively removes antibiotics found in the HWW (>93%), and some studies are carried out at the pilot plant scale. Even though, some families, such as the X-ray contrast media, are recalcitrant to ozone. Other advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), such as Fenton-like or UV treatments, seem very effective for removing pharmaceuticals, Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria (ARBs) and Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs). However, they are not implanted at pilot plant or full scale as they usually consider extra reactants such as ozone, iron, or UV-light, making the scale-up of the processes a challenging task to treat high-loading wastewater. Thus, several examples of biological wastewater treatment methods combined with AOPs have been proposed as the better strategy to treat HWW with high removal of PhCs (generally over 98%) and ARGs/ARBs (below the detection limit) and lower spending on reactants. However, it still requires further development and optimisation of the integrated processes.