Pharmaceuticals are highly diverse group of chemicals used in treatment and prevention of diseases in humans and animals. The advances and improvement of different analytic methodologies during the last decades have demonstrated the widespread occurrence of these compounds in all the environmental compartments, leading to an arising social and scientific awareness. After use, pharmaceuticals are released into the receiving environments via wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) or via direct disposal. Many studies showed that the main point of collection and subsequent release of pharmaceuticals into the environment are WWTPs, suggesting that their upgrade and implementation of advanced treatment technologies are required. Once pharmaceuticals enter into the environment, partitioning (sorption and desorption) and degradation (abiotic and biological degradation) occur. Degradation of pharmaceuticals in the environment and also during wastewater treatment is an important issue, since incomplete degradation can result in degradation products with significantly different physical, chemical and toxic properties. They may be even more toxic than the parent compound.

Pharmaceuticals presence in the environment has been studied for only a small percentage of them despite the fact that thousands of them are approved for human or veterinary usage. In order to properly assess the potential risks posed by these emerging contaminants to the ecosystems, there is need to gain more knowledge and deep understanding about the fate and occurrence of pharmaceuticals and their degradation products in the environment.

The PharmaFate project aims at improving the knowledge in the areas of environmental analytical chemistry and wastewater treatment technologies. The main objectives of the project are to develop advanced wastewater treatment technologies for efficient removal of pharmaceuticals and to achieve an improved understanding of pharmaceuticals fate and effects in the environment and during wastewater treatment.

Targeted pharmaceuticals are selected among those identified as high production volume and highly prescribed pharmaceuticals, potentially persistent and/or bioaccumulative with no or limited published data about their fate and effects in the environment.