Pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors

In recent years the interest of environmental analytical chemistry was turned to the so-called emerging contaminants or new unregulated contaminants including pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, detergents, personal care products, plasticizers, flame retardants, gasoline additives, etc. These compounds are released continuously to the environment and can be found in water, sediments, soils, etc. In most of the cases they are found at trace level concentration (ng/L) therefore, powerful analytical capabilities are required for their determination. 

Kasprzyk-Hordern B, Dinsdale RM, Guwy AJ (2008) The occurrence of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, endocrine disruptors and illicit drugs in surface water in South Wales, UK. Water Res 42 3498-3518... 

Endocrine disruptors are nowadays considered among the most important emerging pollutants in wastewater, but they are not actually monitored on-line. A recent study [48] described the implementation of a broad-spectrum analytical scheme for the screening of more than 200 compounds (endocrine disruptors, pharmaceutical compounds,...) in urban wastewater. For other specific organic compounds, a study concerning the improvement of immunoassays with a solid-phase extraction (SPE) membrane was reported for the on-site detection in soils and water of energetic materials (i.e. explosives) [49], but unfortunately it was not really tested for wastewater. 

Westerhoff P, Yoon Y, Snyder S, Wert E (2005) Fate of endocrine-disruptor, pharmaceutical, and personal care product chemicals during simulated drinking water treatment processes. Environ Sci Technol 39 6649-6663... 

Snyder S.A., P. Westerhoff, Y. Youn, and D.L. Sedlak (2003). Pharmaceuticals, personal care products and endocrine disruptors in water Implications for water treatment. Environmental Engineering Science 20 449 69. 

Stakeholders invited to provide listings of substances of concern drivers might be compounds detected in industrial discharges awareness of international concerns (e.g., endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals) inputs from industry, NGOs, public... 

Wastewater from pharmaceutical industries producing these therapeutics may allow introduction of these endocrine disruptors into the ecosystem if proper filtration is not employed. Moreover, the conjugated products excreted in urine and feces from individuals receiving these pharmaceuticals also can be introduced into the wastewater supply. There are few published results regarding bioaccumulation and biotransformation of estrogen-like pharmaceutics released into the ecosystem. 

Drugs that act on the central nervous system include, amongst others, antidepressant, anti-seizure and sedative drugs. Pharmaceuticals from these classes have been found in aquatic environments13,33 and are of interest because they have the potential to be endocrine disruptors although for the most part this hypothesis has yet to be tested in any aquatic species. To illustrate the possible endocrine disrupting effects, first it will be necessary to briefly describe several aspects of the fish neuroendocrine system. 

Table 2 summarizes some amperometric/voltammetric methods in which VACNT electrodes were used. As can be seen, the proposed electrochemical methods cover a number of different target analytes pharmaceutics, neurotransmitters, endocrine disruptors and water contaminants. Moreover, VACNT electrodes have been used together with nanomaterials, which mimic the active centre of en mes for fabrication of several biosensors. 

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