Carbamazepine in the Environment: Sources, Fate and Adverse Effects

Carbamazepine is a largely prescribed drug worldwide but in the latest years has also become notoriously known as a ubiquitous contaminant of aquatic environments. Indeed, the frequent detection of carbamazepine in effluents of wastewater treatment plants is due to the general inefficiency of conventional wastewater treatment processes to remove this recalcitrant contaminant from incoming contaminated wastewaters. Several studies confirmed that carbamazepine is persistent to bio and photodegradation in the aquatic media and, due to its recalcitrant behaviour, it has been proposed as a possible anthropogenic marker in the aquatic environment. However, up until now only scarce information has been collected in regard to the potential ecological impacts of carbamazepine. It is, thus, very important to consolidate the knowledge about its behaviour and fate in the environment and assess the risks it poses to aquatic ecosystems. This work is a review of current reports on the presence of carbamazepine in the environment, complemented with a general overview of typical (usually low) efficiencies with which conventional wastewater treatment plants are capable of removing carbamazepine from domestic wastewaters. Furthermore, processes and influencing factors that determine the fate of carbamazepine in wastewater treatment plants and in the environment are presented and discussed. Finally, various technologies that have been under study and development over recent years in response to the general inefficiency of conventional wastewater treatment processes in treating carbamazapine and other emerging pollutants are outline and discussed briefly. Hopefully, prospects for significant improvements in carbamazepine removal efficiencies and potential means to achieve that goal in the future are pointed out in this work.