Fate of Pharmaceuticals during Wastewater Treatment by a Membrane Bioreactor

This study provides a comprehensive insight into the levels and fate of nine commonly used pharmaceuticals(amitriptyline, atenolol, gemfi brozil, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, metformin, naproxen, paracetamol and simvastatin)through a full-scale membrane bioreactor (MBR) in New South Wales, Australia. Seven out of the ninestudied pharmaceuticals were detected in the raw sewage with average concentrations in the range of 1.29–33.3 μg.L–1, while gemfi brozil and simvastatin were below the analytical detection limit (1 ng.L–1). The MBRconsistently achieved high removal effi ciencies of the detected pharmaceuticals, in the range of 77.2–99.9 %.A mass-balance showed that sorption to biomass was the dominant removal mechanism for amitriptylinewhile biodegradation/transformation was responsible for removing all other pharmaceuticals. This studyrevealed that log D (Log Kow corrected for ionisation at the ambient pH) provides an effective estimation of thesorption capacity of these pharmaceuticals to biomass.