Benign by design - Design of chemicals and pharmaceuticals for degradability in the aquatic environment
Chemicals and pharmaceuticals are an important pillar of our standard of living and health. They are also indispensable for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Many of these substances, such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, fragrances, biocides, detergents, ingredients of personal care products and washing agents, and others, inevitably enter the aquatic environment as a result of their use. This also applies to their decomposition products, e.g. from paints or abrasion of surfaces. Other compounds, such as flame retardants or plasticizers and other additives of plastics, are released to the environment in the course of their use, and some of them also reach wastewater. Many of these substances are not removed in conventional wastewater treatment or are only incompletely mineralized. Even advanced wastewater treatment can only remove a more or less small part, which varies with the process. Depending on the process, there are even different substances that are removed or not removed or degraded. Thus, for complete removal, one would have to combine several of these advanced treatment processes. In some processes, the treatment even results in the formation of new substances ("transformation products") whose properties are often unknown. Some are known to be even more problematic than the parent compounds from which they emerged.
Solutions to the problem of chemical pollution of water must therefore start at the beginning of the pipe, not at its end. Targeted design of chemicals and pharmaceuticals which perform the function expected of them as well as possible, but which are also rapidly and as completely as possible degradated in the environment at the end of their life, is one such approach at the source. Examples demonstrating the feasibility will be explained in the lecture.
IGB Colloquia open up!
IGB strives to facilitate and accelerate the exchange of knowledge and ideas within and also outside of IGB. One element contributing to inter- and transdisciplinary exchange, and more (scientific) cooperation and innovation, is to open up IGB Colloquia to an interested external audience from science (other research institutes, universities, laboratories) as well as practice (i.e. conservationists, freshwater/land-use managers, authorities, associations). If you would like to join this IGB Colloquium as a guest, we ask you to register until the morning of the colloquium 10 o'clock the latest. After we have checked your registration, you will receive the participation link.