Responsable: Esteban Alonso Álvarez
Tipo de Proyecto/Ayuda: Plan Nacional del 2007
Referencia: CGL2007-62281
Fecha de Inicio: 01-10-2007
Fecha de Finalización: 30-09-2010

Empresa/Organismo financiador/es:

• Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia

Equipo:

• Investigadores:
  • Irene Aparicio Gómez
  • María de la Salud García Rodríguez
• Otros Investigadores:
  • David Olano Gibouin
  • Antonio Santos Morcillo

Contratados:

• Investigadores:
  • María Dolores Camacho Muñoz
  • Juan Luis Santos Morcillo

Resumen del proyecto:

During the last decades, the European Union has considerably promoted, an increase of the control of the presence of new organic pollutants in natural waters (by means of Directives or recommendations), specially when the use of these natural waters could involve any risk to the human health or the environment. Among the emerging contaminants which a special attention has been paid because of their potential risk to water sources, pharmaceutically active compounds are the most unknown group. Nevertheless, their presence in natural waters is constant and unavoidable as they are continuously discharged to the environment through urban wastewaters. The presence of pharmaceuticals in urban wastewaters is mainly due to human excreta and the disposal of unused or expired drugs to the sewer system. The fact that wastewaters are the main source of pharmaceuticals in the environment, makes necessary to obtain more information about the concentration of pharmaceuticals in these wastewaters, the removal efficiency of wastewater conventional treatments and the environmental risks of these compounds. Because all of that, the aims of this project are: i) to develop an analytical methodology to monitorize the most representative pharmaceutically active compounds in wastewater and superficial waters and in sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants; ii) to analyze the distribution of these compounds along the processes of treatment of urban wastewater and sludge; iii) to evaluate the efficiency of the treatment technologies in the elimination of pharmaceutically active compounds; and iv) to evaluate environmental risks associated to the concentrations of pharmaceutically active compounds that are discharged to receipt waters. In summary, conclusions from this project will be a beginning for the next technological changes in urban wastewater to improve wastewater quality and, in that way, to protect water sources.