Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) are continuously increasing in use for various purposes such as treatment and prevention of diseases. Water system and water supply source have been exposed to PPCPs through various routes and the PPCPs are continuously detected even at very low concentrations. PPCPs exposed water supply sources and bioaccumulated aquatic ecosystems can cause threat to water users by toxicity.
In this study, the occurrence of PPCPs such as caffeine and iopamidol were investigated in the water system of the Han River in South Korea. Also, the behavior of PPCPs were evaluated in a water treatment pilot plant combined with conventional water treatment process consisting of coagulation, sedimentation and sand filtration process, and advanced water treatment processes which were ozone oxidation and activated carbon process.
Among the selected PPCPs, Caffeine, Iopamidol, and Benzophenone were continuously detected at the sampling sites during the monitoring period. PPCPs were completely removed at the spiking test in the pilot plant. PPCPs were removed partially in the conventional water treatment process, and ozone oxidation process. The activated carbon adsorption process effectively removed PPCPs. Iopamidol had the lowest removal efficiency in the conventional water treatment process.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by Korea Ministry of Environment as “Project for developing innovative drinking water and wastewater technologies” (2019002710006).