Pharmaceutical Compounds in Aquatic Environments—Occurrence, Fate and Bioremediation Prospective

Various contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) have been detected in different ecosystems, posing a threat to living organisms and the environment. Pharmaceuticals are among the many CECs that enter the environment through different pathways, with wastewater treatment plants being the main input of these pollutants. Several technologies for the removal of these pollutants have been developed through the years, but there is still a lack of sustainable technologies suitable for being applied in natural environments. In this regard, solutions based on natural biological processes are attractive for the recovery of contaminated environments. Bioremediation is one of these natural-based solutions and takes advantage of the capacity of microorganisms to degrade different organic pollutants. Degradation of pollutants by native microorganisms is already known to be an important detoxification mechanism that is involved in natural attenuation processes that occur in the environment. Thus, bioremediation technologies based on the selection of natural degrading bacteria seem to be a promising clean-up technology suitable for application in natural environments. In this review, an overview of the occurrence and fate of pharmaceuticals is carried out, in which bioremediation tools are explored for the removal of these pollutants from impacted environments.