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Tracking drugged waters from various sources to drinking water—its persistence, environmental risk assessment, and removal techniques

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Abstract

Pharmaceuticals have become a major concern due to their nature of persistence and accumulation in the environment. Very few studies have been performed relating to its toxicity and ill effects on the aquatic/terrestrial flora and fauna. The typical wastewater and water treatment processes are not efficient enough to get these persistent pollutants treated, and there are hardly any guidelines followed. Most of them do not get fully metabolized and end up in rivers through human excreta and household discharge. Various methods have been adopted with the advancement in technology, sustainable methods are more in demand as they are usually cost-effective, and hardly any toxic by-products are produced. This paper aims to illustrate the concerns related to pharmaceutical contaminants in water, commonly found drugs in the various rivers and their existing guidelines, ill effects of highly detected pharmaceuticals on aquatic flora and fauna, and its removal and remediation techniques putting more emphasis on sustainable processes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad for availing assistance, encouragement, and needed facilities during research. The authors would also like to thank the Centre for Earth, Energy and Environmental Research (CEEER), IIT(ISM) Dhanbad, for the technical support.

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    Dixita Phukan & Vipin Kumar

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Phukan, D., Kumar, V. Tracking drugged waters from various sources to drinking water—its persistence, environmental risk assessment, and removal techniques. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 86676–86698 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28421-z

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