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A Review on Biological Processes for Pharmaceuticals Wastes AbatementA Growing Threat to Modern Society
journal contribution
posted on 2019-06-19, 18:04 authored by Filomena Costa, Ana Lago, Verónica Rocha, Óscar Barros, Lara Costa, Ziva Vipotnik, Bruna Silva, Teresa TavaresOver the last decades, the production
and consumption of pharmaceuticals
and health care products grew manifold, allowing an increase in life
expectancy and a better life quality for humans and animals, in general.
However, the growth in pharmaceuticals production and consumption
comes with an increase in waste production, which creates a number
of challenges as well as opportunities for the waste management industries.
The conventional current technologies used to treat effluents have
shown to be inefficient to remove or just to reduce the concentrations
of these types of pollutants to the legal limits. The present review
provides a thorough state-of-the-art overview on the use of biological
processes in the rehabilitation of ecosystems contaminated with the
pharmaceutical compounds most commonly detected in the environment
and eventually more studied by the scientific community. Among the
different biological processes, special attention is given to biosorption
and biodegradation.