This book describes how psychiatric pharmaceuticals namely antidepressants anxiolytics
sedatives and hypnotics are among the most prescribed active substances due to the higher
occurrence of psychiatric disorders throughout the world. It goes on to demonstrate how
patients' excretion of the active compounds along with several metabolites is considered to be
the main pathway for the occurrence of these emerging pollutants in wastewater treatment plant
effluents surface and drinking water soils and sediments. Further chapters are devoted to an
exploration of these pharmaceuticals' high persistence toxicity and intrinsic biological
activity which can affect the nervous and endocrine systems of terrestrial and aquatic
non-target organisms the dissemination of these compounds in environment matrices and the
growing number of associated problems and concerns. The remainder of the book describes how
conventional wastewater treatment processes are generally inefficient when it comes to the
removal of this type of pollutants giving rise to the demand for implementing alternative or
complementary treatment technologies. Extensive research studies on the efficiency of the
degradation and or removal of these pollutants are summarized and adsorption membrane and
advanced oxidation processes (AOP) are proposed. Given its content and structure the book
offers a concise summary of the most significant findings on psychiatric pharmaceutical removal
in wastewater.
