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The rise in population growth that necessitates an increase in animal husbandry activities has led to overconsumption, improper use, and disposal of pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics leading to environmental pollution. In developing countries where we have inefficient and outdated wastewater treatment facilities that are unable to effectively remove these pollutants from domestic wastewater, the effect is the contamination of groundwater supply used for domestic purposes, necessitating the development of advanced techniques. The adoption of adsorption‐based technologies with the use of adsorbents such as carbon‐based nanomaterials, biochar, and functionalized nanomaterials has proven to be effective in removing these contaminants from aqueous solutions. For instance, a 3D boron‐doped graphene composite has been reported to effectively remove amitriptyline from water with a maximum adsorption capacity of adsorption capacity of 737.4 mg/g. Magnetic starch has proven to be effective in removing diclofenac from aqueous solutions, with a reported maximum adsorption capacity of 620.51 mg/g. However, current studies have a limited understanding of the adsorption process, adsorption mechanisms, and universality of the adsorbents used. Future studies should focus on developing cost‐effective and sustainable adsorbents as well as exploring integrated approaches and technologies that combine adsorption with other technologies and techniques for effective removal of pharmaceutical contaminants, ensuring cleaner and safer water resources. To this effect, this review highlights the impact of the overconsumption of pharmaceutical compounds and the different adsorbents thereof that have been incorporated in wastewater treatment for the removal of pharmaceutical compounds from water using the adsorption method. It discusses in detail the increase in adoption of the use of various nanocomposites in the removal of these pollutants from surface waters and the removal efficiencies.
Munuhe et al. (Wed,) studied this question.