Identification of critical pharmaceutical contaminants in the Indian scenario and photocatalytic degradation of selected contaminants in a batch reactor

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are contaminants of emerging concern and have been detected worldwide in water bodies in trace concentrations. Most of these emerging contaminants are not regulated in water quality standards, except for a few in the developed countries. In the case of developing countries, research in this direction is at a nascent stage. For the effective management of pharmaceutical contaminants (PCs) in developing countries, the relevance of PCs as an emerging contaminant has to be analyzed first, followed by regular monitoring of its presence in the environment. Considering the resource constraints, this could be accomplished by identifying the critical compounds, which again is region specific and dependent on consumption behaviour and pattern. In this research work, the relevance of pharmaceutical compounds as an emerging contaminant in water for a developing country like India was examined by analyzing the data pertaining to consumption of pharmaceuticals in the country. To identify the critical pharmaceutical contaminants to be monitored in the Indian scenario, priority compounds, identified using selected prioritization methods, were screened with the compounds listed in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), India. Further, information on the number of publications on the compound as an emerging contaminant, data on monitoring studies in India, and the number of brands marketing the compound in India were also analyzed. It is found that out of 195 critical compounds identified using different prioritisation methods, only 77 compounds were relevant to India based on the NLEM sorting. Effluent discharge from pharmaceutical industries is a significant contributor of pharmaceutical contaminants into the environment as it often contains these contaminants, at higher concentrations, when released into the domestic wastewater drain.