Removal of residual anti-inflammatory and analgesic pharmaceuticals from aqueous systems by electrochemical advanced oxidation processes. A review

Occurrence of pharmaceuticals in natural water is considered as an emerging environmental problem owing to their potential toxicological risk on living organisms even at low concentration. Low removal efficiency of pharmaceuticals by conventional wastewater treatment plants requests for a more efficient technology. Nowadays research on advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have become a hot topic, because these technologies have been shown to be able to oxidize efficiently most organic pollutants until mineralization to inorganic carbon (CO2). Among AOPs, the electrochemical advanced oxidation processes (EAOPs), and in particular, “anodic oxidation” and “electro-Fenton”, have demonstrated good prospective at lab-scale level for the abatement of pollution caused by the presence of residual pharmaceuticals in waters. This paper reviews and discusses the effectiveness of EAOPs for the removal of anti-inflammatory and analgesic pharmaceuticals from aqueous systems.