Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in municipal wastewater effluents pose a direct threat to aquatic ecosystems and an indirect threat to human health when the downstream water is a drinking water source. To address both of these concerns, effective treatments are needed to remove PPCPs in municipal wastewater treatment plants, prior to their release into natural waters. This talk will examine the fundamental parameters that control the effectiveness of an enzymatic treatment process (specifically, laccase-mediator systems) to remove PPCPs from municipal wastewater. The effect of mediators, target PPCPs, and the wastewater matrix on the removal of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics will be addressed. The results indicate that successful removal of PPCPs such as sulfamethoxazole is possible in municipal wastewater but the effectiveness and feasibility of the process is a strong function of several factors including laccase source, type of mediator, enzyme to mediator ratio, as well as wastewater source (e.g., primary versus secondary effluent, filtered versus unfiltered wastewater).

Enzymatic treatment to remove pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) from municipal wastewater effluents

255th National Meeting (2018)

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