Dr Bruce Petrie b.r.petrie@rgu.ac.uk
Associate Professor
One Health Medicine – developing a predictive tool for pharmaceuticals in wastewater
People Involved
Project Description
Medicines are used everyday by humans. However, they can be detrimental to aquatic life. Pharmaceuticals enter the environment following human excretion and transport through wastewater systems. The danger pharmaceuticals pose is location specific depending on the amount consumed and how much it is diluted and degraded in water. Identifying where pharmaceuticals pose the greatest danger is essential for putting intervening measures in place to protect the environment. Traditionally, the danger posed by pharmaceuticals is determined by measuring their concentration in water. This is very expensive and time consuming to cover a wide range of pharmaceuticals across a large geographical area. Alternatively, freely available prescription information can be used to predict pharmaceutical concentrations in water at different times of year and locations. However, previous attempts to predict pharmaceuticals in water have found poor comparisons with measured concentrations. This is because all factors influencing the final pharmaceutical concentration in water are not accounted for. Their degradation during wastewater transport is overlooked. This Fellowship will investigate how different pharmaceuticals degrade and change during wastewater transport.
| Type of Project | Fellowship |
|---|---|
| Status | Project Complete |
| Funder(s) | The Royal Society |
| Value | £28,356.00 |
| Project Dates | Oct 30, 2023 - Nov 1, 2024 |
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