Janssens, Raphaël
[UCL]
Luis Alconero, Patricia
[UCL]
The potential of slurry photocatalytic membrane reactors (PMR) to degrade cytostatic drugs is presented in this work as an emerging technology for wastewater treatment. Cytostatic drugs are pharmaceutical compounds (PhCs) commonly used in cancer treatment. Such compounds and their metabolites, as well as their degraded by-products have genotoxic and mutagenic effects. Therefore, safe strategies should be developed in order to collect and degrade the micro-pollutants using appropriate treatment technologies. In this study, a lab scale slurry PMR has been used to degrade 5 cytostatic drugs commonly delivered in Belgian hospitals: cyclophosphamide, 5-fluorouracil, methotrexate, gemcitabine and ifosfamide. The slurry photoreactor and tubular membrane module were studied separately in batch modes. Firstly the decrease of UV absorbance (at 200 nm) was used as an indicator of cyclophosphamide removal in order to define optimal operating conditions: pH 7, TiO2 catalyst load 1,5 g/L, UV-c light (10 watts). Afterwards, these conditions were applied for successful treatment of a mix of 5 cytostatic drugs (100 µg/L) measured by liquid chromatography (HPLC-MS/MS). Beside experiments were also performed on tubular ceramic membranes. Low transmembrane flux stabilization (21 hours) were observed with pure water. Moreover 100 kDa membranes were able to reject suspended TiO2 catalyst with no critical flux observed. From these results, it is possible to conclude that a UV absorbance decrease is an indicator to cytostatic drug degradation. In addition the two independent studies on photoreactor and membrane module indicate that high cytostatic removal could be obtained when studying a fully integrated slurry PMR treatment. Furthermore, key recommendations will be presented in order to develop advanced water treatment powered by renewable energy. and made of long lifetime materials.


Bibliographic reference |
Janssens, Raphaël ; Luis Alconero, Patricia. Slurry photocatalytic membrane reactor technology for cytotoxic drugs removal from wastewater.10th World Congress of Chemical Engineering (Barcelona, Spain, du 01/10/2017 au 05/10/2017). |
Permanent URL |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/195798 |