Electrocoagulation as an efficacious technology for the treatment of wastewater containing active pharmaceutical compounds: a review

ABSTRACT

The presence of emerging pollutants in the environment can pose potential risks to the natural ecosystem. Hence, the efficacious removal of emerging pollutants, like pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, beta blockers and analgesics, from wastewater has recently been a major area of concern for the researchers, since these biorefractory compounds can bioaccumulate in living beings and can also transform into other toxic compounds in the natural environment. Since pharmaceuticals are not efficiently removed through conventional wastewater treatment technologies; hence, trace concentrations of these can be found in the treated effluent. Thus, the development of reliable and efficient treatment technologies for the removal of pharmaceuticals is imperative. Electrocoagulation (EC) can treat these compounds effectively. In this review, the application of EC for the removal of pharmaceuticals, critical parameters that influence the treatment efficiency, comparison of EC with chemical coagulation and the economics pertaining to EC have been discussed. The presence of different pharmaceuticals in wastewater, their respective concentrations and their adverse effects on the ecosystem have also been elucidated. Thus, this state-of-the-art review provides updated information on the application of EC for the removal of pharmaceuticals and assists readers to take this technology a step forward for commercialization to produce treated water safely for different reuse purposes.

KEYWORDS:

• Eco-toxicity
• Electrocoagulation
• Emerging pollutants
• Pharmaceuticals
• Wastewater treatment

Acknowledgements

This research work received funding support from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (File No. DST/TMD (EWO)/OWUIS-2018/RS-10).

Authors’ contributions

Azhan Ahmad: conceptualization; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; roles/writing—original draft; writing—review and editing.

Monali Priyadarshini: validation; visualization; roles/writing—original draft; data curation; writing—review and editing; investigation.

Sovik Das: software; visualization; roles/writing—original draft; writing—review and editing.

M. M. Ghangrekar: funding acquisition; project administration; resources; supervision; validation; writing—review and editing.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology [DST/TMD (EWO)/OWUIS-2018/RS-10].