The fate and risk assessment of psychiatric pharmaceuticals from psychiatric hospital effluent

Psychiatric pharmaceuticals are gaining public attention because of increasing reports of their occurrence in environment and their potential impact on ecosystems and human health. This work studied the occurrence and fate of 15 selected psychiatric pharmaceuticals from 3 psychiatric hospitals effluent in Shanghai and investigated the effect of hospitals effluent on surface water, groundwater, soil and plant. Amitriptyline (83.57 ng L-1) and lorazepam (22.26 ng L-1) showed the highest concentration and were found frequently in hospital effluent. Lorazepam (8.27 ng L-1), carbamazepine (83.80 ng L-1) and diazepam (79.33 ng L-1) showed higher values in surface water. The concentration of lorazepam (46.83 ng L-1) in groundwater was higher than other reports. Only six target compounds were detected in all three soil points in accordance with very low concentration. Alkaline pharmaceuticals were more easily adsorbed by soil. Carbamazepine (1.29 ng g(-1)) and lorazepam (2.95 ng g(-1)) were frequently determined in plant tissues. The correlation analyses (Spearman correlations > 0.5) showed the main source of psychiatric pharmaceuticals pollutants might be hospital effluents (from effluent to surface water; from surface water to groundwater). However, hospital effluents were not the only pollution sources from the perspective of the dilution factor analysis. Although the risk assessment indicated that the risk was low to aquatic organism, the continuous discharge of pollution might cause potential environment problem.