Emerging Pollutants—Pitfalls in Their Removal: A Case Study

In countries with limited water resources, reusing treated sewage effluent (TSE) is necessary to overcome water scarcity. The quality of the TSE to be reused should be adequate to avoid adverse effects on the environment and its creatures. Pharmaceuticals are among the persistent contaminants to the conventional wastewater treatment process being regularly discharged into sewage effluent from various human activities. In this study, the removal of two widely used pharmaceuticals, ibuprofen (a painkiller) and gemfibrozil (a lipid regulator), from TSE has been investigated using a catalytic ozonation process. Activated carbon was produced from local date pits treated with phosphoric acid at 550 °C with a high surface area of 726 m2/g to serve as catalysts. The removals were evaluated as single components and in binary systems at different dosages. Very fast and complete removals of both compounds were obtained by the catalytic ozonation process, and the activated carbon reusability showed almost no effect on the removal efficiencies after 10 cycles with almost unchanged phosphate and nitrate concentrations. This work aimed to produce high-quality TSE for possible use in agriculture with high nutrients and low contaminants.