New articles!Pharmaceuticals in sewage sludge
MistraPharma researchers at Lund University and Umeå University have published three articles on the removal of pharmaceutical substances from sewage sludge.
MistraPharma researchers at Lund University and Umeå University have determined sorption of 75 pharmaceuticals in different types of sewage sludge (1). They conclude that 37 of the 75 pharmaceuticals were present in the liquid phase to an extent exceeding 80 percent. In contrast, 14 pharmaceuticals had high affinity towards sludge and less than 20 percent were present in the liquid phase. The researchers at Lund University have also investigated how the removal of pharmaceuticals in activated sludge was affected by solid retention time and nitrification capacity (2). The team concluded that the bacterial composition of the sludge is important for pharmaceutical removal and that no clear dependency on the nitrifying capacity could be observed. Furthermore, increased sludge retention time improved removal of some, but not all, pharmaceuticals.
Finally, the removal of six pharmaceuticals from treated wastewater was studied with chlorine dioxide and peracetic acid (3). Most of the pharmaceuticals were removed by low doses of chlorine dioxide, while peracetic acid only removed few. This shows that chlorine dioxide could be used as an additional step in the wastewater treatment where biological methods are insufficient to remove pharmaceuticals.
For more information on each publication, please contact the respective first authors at Maritha.Horsing@chemeng.lth.se, Per.Falas@chemeng.lth.se, and Gerly.Hey@chemeng.lth.se.
Published articles:
1. Hörsing M, Ledin A, Grabic R, Fick J, Tysklind M, Jansen JC and Andersen HR (2011) Determination of sorption of seventy-five pharmaceuticals in sewage sludge. Water Res 45: 4470-4482. Abstract
2. Falås P, Andersen HR, Ledin A and Jansen JC (2011) Impact of solid retention time and nitrification capacity on the ability of activated sludge to remove pharmaceuticals. Environmental Technology, in press. Abstract
3. Hey G, Ledin A, Jansen JC and Andersen HR (2011) Removal of pharmaceuticals in biologically treated wastewater by chlorine dioxide or peracetic acid. Environmental Technology, in press. Abstract
