Waterless Urinals Remove Select Pharmaceuticals from Urine by Phase Partitioning.

Environ Sci Technol

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557-0258, United States.

Published: May 2020

AI Article Synopsis

  • The study explored how effective waterless urinal sealant fluids are at removing pharmaceuticals from urine, particularly focusing on their chemical composition and removal efficiency.
  • Two of the three tested sealant fluids removed over 40% of ethinyl estradiol during simulated urination, but struggled with more hydrophilic compounds, showing removal rates below 30%.
  • By increasing the time urine was in contact with the sealants (hydraulic retention time), the removal of certain hydrophobic compounds improved significantly, with ethinyl estradiol removal reaching 90%, suggesting potential benefits in female urinals.

Article Abstract

We investigated the potential for waterless urinal sealants fluids to remove pharmaceuticals from urine. H NMR, FTIR, and GC/MS characterization of the fluids indicated that they are mostly composed of aliphatic compounds. Removal of ethinyl estradiol was >40% for two of the three sealant fluids during simulated urination to a urinal cartridge but removal of seven other compounds with greater hydrophilicity was <30%. At equilibrium with Milli-Q water, ≥ 89% partitioning to the sealant phase was observed for three compounds with pH adjusted log (log ) > 3.5. At equilibrium with synthetic urine, removal ranged widely from 2% to 100%. was poorly correlated with removal for both matrices at equilibrium, but was correlated with removal from synthetic urine for two of the three sealants, indicating that ionization and hydrophilicity control partitioning between the urine and sealant phases. To improve removal during urination, where equilibrium is not achieved, we increased the hydraulic retention time 100-fold over that of typical male urination. Removal of specific hydrophobic compounds increased, indicating that both hydrophobicity and kinetics control removal. Removal of ethinyl estradiol was ≥90% for all sealants in the increased hydraulic retention time experiment, demonstrating the potential for implementation to female urinals.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7396142PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b06205DOI Listing

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