Assessing the human risk and the environmental fate of pharmaceutical Tramadol.

Tramadol (TRA) is a widely used human pharmaceutical and a well-established emerging pollutant and its potential genotoxic and cytotoxic effects on humans as well as its fate in aqueous systems demand full investigation. The present study is a multidisciplinary approach and provides important insights on the potential risks of Tramadol on humans accompanied by its photolytic transformation under simulated solar irradiation. The present study revealed that Tramadol can induce genotoxic and cytotoxic effects under the specific experimental conditions, significantly depended on the tested concentration.

Photocatalytic degradation kinetics, mechanism and ecotoxicity assessment of tramadol metabolites in aqueous TiO2 suspensions.

This study investigated for the first time the photocatalytic degradation of three well-known transformation products (TPs) of pharmaceutical Tramadol, N-desmethyl-(N-DES), N,N-bidesmethyl (N,N-Bi-DES) and N-oxide-tramadol (N-OX-TRA) in two different aquatic matrices, ultrapure water and secondary treated wastewater, with high (10 mg L(-1)) and low (50 μg L(-1)) initial concentrations, respectively. Total disappearance of the parent compounds was attained in all experiments. For initial concentration of 10 mg L(-1), the target compounds were degraded within 30-40 min and a mineralization degree of more than 80% was achieved after 240 min of irradiation, while the contained organic nitrogen was released mainly as NH4(+) for N-DES, N,N-Bi-DES and NO3(-) for N-OX-TRA.