Occurrence and fate of pharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment plants and rivers in Korea

We measured 25 pharmaceuticals in ten municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), one hospital WWTP and five rivers in Korea. In the municipal WWTP influents, acetaminophen, acetylsalicylic acid and caffeine showed relatively high concentrations. The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the wastewater seems to be influenced by production and consumption of pharmaceuticals. The hospital WWTP influent showed higher total concentrations of pharmaceuticals than the municipal WWTPs, and caffeine, ciprofloxacin and acetaminophen were dominant. In the rivers, caffeine was dominant, and the distribution of pharmaceuticals was related to the inflow of the wastewater. In the municipal WWTPs, the concentrations of acetaminophen, caffeine, acetylsalicylic acid, ibuprofen and gemfibrozil decreased by over 99%. The decrease of these pharmaceuticals occurred mainly during the biological processes. In the physico-chemical processes, the decrease of pharmaceuticals was insignificant except for some cases. In the hospital WWTP, ciprofloxacin, acetylsalicylic acid, acetaminophen and carbamazepine showed the decrease rates of over 80%.