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In recent years, there has been growing concern about the occurrence ofpharmaceuticals in surface waters. Surface waters are widely used as a water resourcefor drinking water production and so far it is not clear to what extent these compoundsare removed during water treatment processes. The objective of this study was to assess theelimination of pharmaceuticals during ozonation. A list of nine pharmaceuticals,including the antibiotics sulfamethoxazole and roxithromycin and the endocrinedisruptor 17+/- -ethinylestradiol (EE2), were investigated. In the first part of the study,it could be shown that many pharmaceuticals react very quickly with ozone. However,the ozonation of these compounds leads to the formation of oxidation products,because full mineralization does not occur with common ozone doses applied indrinking water treatment. It cannot be completely ruled out that these oxidationproducts still produce the intended medicinal or other biological effects. Therefore, itis important to identify major oxidation products and test them at least for themedicinal effect of the parent compound. In the second part of this study, EE2 wasselected to investigate the formation of oxidation products during ozonation. Theestrogenic activity of the oxidation products was assessed using a yeast estrogenscreen (YES). Includes 6 references, table.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 11/02/2003 Number of Pages: 4File Size: 1 file , 250 KB