Biotransformation of pharmaceuticals in surface water and duringwaste water treatment: Identification and occurrence oftransformation products

“Venlafaxine, gemfibrozil, ibuprofen, irbesartan and ofloxacin are highly-consumed pharmaceuticals thatshow considerable removal efficiencies (between 40 and 98%) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).Consequently, they are expected to generate transformation products (TPs) during wastewater treatmentand in surface water (SW) receiving WWTP effluent. In this work, degradation experiments for thesefive pharmaceuticals have been carried out with SW and WWTP activated sludge under laboratory-controlled aerobic conditions to identify their transformation products by liquid chromatography coupledto time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC–QTOF MS). Initially, 22 pharmaceutical TPs were tentativelyidentified. A retrospective analysis was performed in effluent wastewater (EWW) and SW samples. Allparent compounds as well as several TPs were found in some of the selected EWW and SW samples.Additionally, valsartan and 3 TPs were also detected by searching for common fragments in these waters.It is important to highlight that some TPs, such as O-desmethyl-venlafaxine and an oxidized gemfibrozilTP, were more frequently found than their corresponding parent compounds. On the basis of these results.”

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(Citaat: Boix, C., Ibánez, M., et al. – Biotransformation of pharmaceuticals in surface water and during waste water treatment: Identification and occurrence of transformation products – Journal of Harzardous Materials 302(2016)175-187)