title: Status of hormones and painkillers in wastewater effluents across several European states-considerations for the EU watch list concerning estradiols and diclofenac.
abstract: Present technologies for wastewater treatment do not sufficiently address the increasing pollution situation of receiving water bodies, especially with the growing use of personal care products and pharmaceuticals (PPCP) in the private household and health sector. The relevance of addressing this problem of organic pollutants was taken into account by the Directive 2013/39/EU that introduced (i) the quality evaluation of aquatic compartments, (ii) the polluter pays principle, (iii) the need for innovative and affordable wastewater treatment technologies, and (iv) the identification of pollution causes including a list of principal compounds to be monitored. In addition, a watch list of 10 other substances was recently defined by Decision 2015/495 on March 20, 2015. This list contains, among several recalcitrant chemicals, the painkiller diclofenac and the hormones 17β-estradiol and 17α-ethinylestradiol. Although some modern approaches for their removal exist, such as advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), retrofitting most wastewater treatment plants with AOPs will not be acceptable as consistent investment at reasonable operational cost. Additionally, by-product and transformation product formation has to be considered. The same is true for membrane-based technologies (nanofiltration, reversed osmosis) despite of the incredible progress that has been made during recent years, because these systems lead to higher operation costs (mainly due to higher energy consumption) so that the majority of communities will not easily accept them. Advanced technologies in wastewater treatment like membrane bioreactors (MBR) that integrate biological degradation of organic matter with membrane filtration have proven a more complete elimination of emerging pollutants in a rather cost- and labor-intensive technology. Still, most of the presently applied methods are incapable of removing critical compounds completely. In this opinion paper, the state of the art of European WWTPs is reflected, and capacities of single methods are described. Furthermore, the need for analytical standards, risk assessment, and economic planning is stressed. The survey results in the conclusion that combinations of different conventional and advanced technologies including biological and plant-based strategies seem to be most promising to solve the burning problem of polluting our environment with hazardous emerging xenobiotics.
authors.affiliation: Research Unit Microbe-Plant Interactions (EGEN), German Research Center for Health and Environment GmbH, Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, Ingolstädter Landstr. 1, 85764, Neuherberg, Germany. peter.schroeder@helmholtz-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schröder
authors.affiliation: Chair of Urban Water Systems Engineering, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Helmreich
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Technology, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Škrbić
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carballa
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Environmental Architectural Engineering & Mathematics, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Papa
authors.affiliation: CNR-Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pastore
authors.affiliation: Turkish Atomic Energy Authority, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Emre
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT), Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), Caparica, Portugal.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Oehmen
authors.affiliation: Sub-department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen University of Agrotechnology & Food Sciences, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Langenhoff
authors.affiliation: University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Molinos
authors.affiliation: Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dvarioniene
authors.affiliation: Research Unit Microbe-Plant Interactions (EGEN), German Research Center for Health and Environment GmbH, Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, Ingolstädter Landstr. 1, 85764, Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.affiliation: Business and Environmental Economics Technology Lab (BETECO), Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece.
authors.forename: K P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Tsagarakis
authors.affiliation: University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Martinez-Lopez
authors.affiliation: Namık Kemal Üniversitesi, Tekirdağ, Turkey.
authors.forename: S Meric
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Pagano
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vogelsang
authors.affiliation: CNR-Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mascolo
mesh_terms: D000700:Analgesics / Q000032:analysis*; D004008:Diclofenac / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D004958:Estradiol / Q000032:analysis*; D004997:Ethinyl Estradiol / Q000032:analysis*; D005062:European Union; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods; D062065:Wastewater / Q000032:analysis; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D000700:Analgesics; D004008:Diclofenac; D004958:Estradiol; D004997:Ethinyl Estradiol; D062065:Wastewater; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Advanced technologies; Diclofenac; EU watch list; Effluent quality; Emerging pollutants; Ethinylestradiol; Pollutant removal