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Occurrence and behaviour of pharmaceutical compounds in a Portuguese wastewater treatment plant: Removal efficiency through conventional treatment processes

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Abstract

Wastewater treatments can eliminate or remove a substantial amount of pharmaceutical active compounds (PhACs), but there may still be significant concentrations of them in effluents discharged into surface water bodies. Beirolas wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is located in the Lisbon area and makes its effluent discharges into Tagus estuary (Portugal). The main objective of this study is to quantify a group of 32 PhACs in the different treatments used in this WWTP. Twelve sampling campaigns of wastewater belonging to the different treatments were made in 2013–2014 in order to study their removal efficiency. The wastewaters were analysed by solid phase extraction (SPE) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass detection (UPLC–MS/MS). The anti-diabetics were the most frequently found in wastewater influent (WWI) and wastewater effluent (WWE) (208 and 1.7 μg/L, respectively), followed by analgesics/antipyretics (135 μg/L and < LOQ, respectively), psychostimulants (113 and 0.49 μg/L, respectively), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (33 and 2.6 μg/L, respectively), antibiotics (5.2 and 1.8 μg/L, respectively), antilipidemics (1.6 and 0.24 μg/L, respectively), anticonvulsants (1.5 and 0.63 μg/L, respectively) and beta blockers (1.3 and 0.51 μg/L, respectively). A snapshot of the ability of each treatment step to remove these target PhACs is provided, and it was found that global efficiency is strongly dependent on the efficiency of secondary treatment. Seasonal occurrence and removal efficiency was also monitored, and they did not show a significant seasonal trend.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) for funding this study through BD fellowship (SFRH/BDE/30804/2009) and Infarmed for providing the consumption data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. iMed.UL (Institute for Medicines and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Portugal), Faculdade de Farmácia da Universidade de Lisboa (FFUL), Av. Prof. Gama Pinto, 1649-003, Lisbon, Portugal

    Vanessa de Jesus Gaffney & Cristina Maria Martins Almeida

  2. Empresa Portuguesa das Águas Livres, S.A.—EPAL, Direção de Controlo da Qualidade da Água, Av. de Berlim, 15 –, 1800-031, Lisbon, Portugal

    Vitor Vale Cardoso & Maria João Benoliel

  3. Empresa Portuguesa das Águas Livres, S.A.—EPAL, Direção de Operações de Saneamento, ETAR de Beirolas, Rua Chen He, 1990-513, Sacavém, Portugal

    Eugénia Cardoso, Ana Paula Teixeira & José Martins

  4. FFUL, Laboratório de Bromatologia e Qualidade da Água, Avenida Prof. Gama Pinto, 1649-003, Lisbon, Portugal

    Cristina Maria Martins Almeida

Authors
  1. Vanessa de Jesus Gaffney
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  2. Vitor Vale Cardoso
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  3. Eugénia Cardoso
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  4. Ana Paula Teixeira
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  5. José Martins
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  6. Maria João Benoliel
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  7. Cristina Maria Martins Almeida
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Correspondence to Cristina Maria Martins Almeida.

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de Jesus Gaffney, V., Cardoso, V.V., Cardoso, E. et al. Occurrence and behaviour of pharmaceutical compounds in a Portuguese wastewater treatment plant: Removal efficiency through conventional treatment processes. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 14717–14734 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9012-7

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