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Pharmaceuticals in the Aquatic Environment: A Review on Eco-Toxicology and the Remediation Potential of Algae
Summary
This review examines how pharmaceutical drugs end up in water through human activity and the damage they cause to aquatic life. Standard wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove these drugs effectively, so researchers are exploring the use of algae as a low-cost, natural cleanup method. While not directly about microplastics, this is relevant because microplastics in water can absorb and transport pharmaceutical chemicals, potentially increasing human exposure.
The pollution of the aquatic environment has become a worldwide problem. The widespread use of pesticides, heavy metals and pharmaceuticals through anthropogenic activities has increased the emission of such contaminants into wastewater. Pharmaceuticals constitute a significant class of aquatic contaminants and can seriously threaten the health of non-target organisms. No strict legal regulations on the consumption and release of pharmaceuticals into water bodies have been implemented on a global scale. Different conventional wastewater treatments are not well-designed to remove emerging contaminants from wastewater with high efficiency. Therefore, particular attention has been paid to the phycoremediation technique, which seems to be a promising choice as a low-cost and environment-friendly wastewater treatment. This technique uses macro- or micro-algae for the removal or biotransformation of pollutants and is constantly being developed to cope with the issue of wastewater contamination. The aims of this review are: (i) to examine the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in water, and their toxicity on non-target organisms and to describe the inefficient conventional wastewater treatments; (ii) present cost-efficient algal-based techniques of contamination removal; (iii) to characterize types of algae cultivation systems; and (iv) to describe the challenges and advantages of phycoremediation.
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