A green practice for pharmaceutical drug chlorhexidine digluconate treatment and ecotoxicity assessment

The principal aim of this study is to assess the environmental risk associated with the exposure of active pharmaceutical ingredient ‘chlorhexidine digluconate’ and its degraded products after photomineralization process in aquatic system. This drug component, being the main constituent of mouth rinses is directly released to aquatic environment devoid of any processing steps from households. This unrestricted continuous inflow of drug components to the aquatic system intensifies the environmental concern. This study intends to analyze the aquatic toxicity of chlorhexidine digluconate by bacterial susceptibility test and evaluation of photomineralization process as a ‘green practice’ for detoxification of chlorhexidine digluconate contaminated process steam. Since, the pharmaceutical compounds often get degraded into more persistent and toxic products so; effects of transformed products on bacterial strains have been investigated using a set of bioassays (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia Coli). The in vitro bacterial susceptibility and bactericidal potential analysis have illustrated comparatively ecosafe nature of chlorhexidine digluconate mineralized products and an eco-friendly process discharge.