Mitigating the impact of antineoplastic drugs on aquatic environment: nanofiltration as a promising tertiary wastewater treatment

Pharmaceuticals known as antineoplastic agents are increasingly prescribed in the fight against cancer. This is causing some concern in the scientific community due their poor treatment in many conventional wastewater treatment plants and poor environmental biodegradability, posing a potential risk to eukaryotic organisms. Finding treatment solutions to prevent the entry and buildup of these compounds in the environment becomes urgent. In this study, ten antineoplastic drugs and one corticosteroid, five of which had never been examined before, were monitored in a real wastewater effluent and their removal using a nanofiltration pilot scale unit with a Desal 5DK membrane was evaluated. Average removals of 68±23% were attained for the eleven compounds, being the lowest one 3010% for mycophenolate mofetil and the highest one 98.30.4% for megestrol. Except for cyclophosphamide, for which a high risk was estimated in the permeate, the remaining risks determined in the permeate for aquatic organisms from receiving bodies were low (capecitabine, mycophenolic acid and flutamide) or null. Phytotoxicity tests revealed that the permeate appears to have a lower negative impact on the growth of Sinapis alba plants' roots than the feed stream. 5. Acknowledgments This research was financially supported by: (i) Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031297 (CytoStraTech)—funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020—Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) and by national funds (PIDDAC) through FCT/MCTES; (ii) NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000069 (Healthy Waters) co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement; (iii) LA/P/0045/2020 (ALiCE), Base Fundings UIDB/00511/2020 and UIDP/00511/2020 (LEPABE) and UIDB/50020/2020 and UIDP/50020/2020 (LSRE-LCM), funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC). iNOVA4Health – UIDB/04462/2020 and UIDP/04462/2020, a program financially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior, through national funds is acknowledged. Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry- LAQV which is financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UIDB/50006/2020 and UIDP/50006/2020) is gratefully acknowledged. Teresa I.A. Gouveia would like to thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for her Ph.D. grant (SFRH/BD/147301/2019). Mónica S.F. Santos and Ana R.L. Ribeiro acknowledge FCT funding under DL57/2016 Transitory Norm Programm