PPCPs in the Environment

The frequent occurrence of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in the aquatic environment is an emerging environmental issue in the U.S. Two important sources of PPCP contaminants in the environment are municipal/industrial sewage treatment plants (STPs) and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Scientists at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) at the University of Illinois are conducting several studies associated with PPCPs: (1) developing analytical methods using LC/MS/MS; (2) investigating environmental fate and transport; (3) identifying contamination sources, and (4) remediating or mitigating environmental contamination from PPCPs.

Currently, we are receiving a competitive research grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the fate and transport of steroid hormones and veterinary antibiotics derived from dairy and beef farms. The goal of this project aims to identify and quantify the fate and transport of several commonly-occurring steroid hormones, veterinary antibiotics, and their metabolites in the environment, minimize their contamination in water supply, and enhance protection of the natural resources and environment. This research will involve a combination of laboratory, field, and numerical modeling experiments using representative steroid hormones and veterinary antibiotics as well as dairy and beef wastes.

U of I News Bureau story on this research work can be found at http://news.illinois.edu/news/12/0605estrogen_WeiZheng.html

Noticias de la Ciencia y la Tecnologia (NCYT) news article about Wei Zheng's paper on aeration lagoon systems in rural United States (publication language: Spanish).

For more information on ISTC's PPCP research, please contact Wei Zheng.

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ISTC Report and Bibliography

ISTC has a report titled PPCPs in the Illinois Environment: Current Information and Research Recommendations available for viewing.

ISTC's librarian has created a bibliography of publications related to the characterization, analysis, fate, toxicology, and treatment of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment.

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PPCP Symposium

ISTC hosted a symposium on pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the Illinois environment on April 25th, 2008. Below are the video archives of the presentations as well as links to download the slides in PDF or PowerPoint. All videos require Windows Media Player 9 or above.

Presentations are in order of appearance.