Contribution of Arab countries to pharmaceutical wastewater literature: a bibliometric and comparative analysis of research output

BACKGROUND: Recently, the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry has been growing rapidly in many countries in the world, including in Arab countries. Pharmaceuticals reach aquatic environments and are prevalent at small concentrations in wastewater from the drug manufacturing industry and hospitals. Such presence also occurs in domestic wastewater and results from the disposal of unused and expired medicines. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze and compare the quantity and quality of publications made by researchers in Arab countries on pharmaceutical wastewater. METHODS: To retrieve documents related to pharmaceutical wastewater, we used the Scopus database on November 21, 2015. All documents with terms related to pharmaceutical wastewater in the title or abstract were analysed. Results obtained from Arab countries were compared with those obtained from Turkey, Iran and Israel. RESULTS: Globally, a total of 6360 publications were retrieved while those from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey and Israel, were 179, 113, 96 and 54 publications respectively. The highest share of publications belonged to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) with a total of 47 (26.2 %) publications, followed by Egypt (38; 21.2 %), Tunisia (17; 9.5 %) and Morocco (16; 8.9 %). The total number of citations was 1635, with a mean of 9.13 and a median (inter quartile range) of 3 (1.0–10.0). The study identified 87 (48.6 %) documents with 32 countries of international collaboration with Arab countries. It was noted that Arab researchers collaborated mainly with authors in Western Europe (54; 30.2 %), followed by authors from the Asiatic region (29; 16.2 %) and Northern America (15; 8.4 %). The most productive institution was King Saud University, KSA (13; 7.3 %), followed by the National Research Centre, Egypt (10; 7.3 %). CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that KSA has the largest share of productivity on pharmaceutical wastewater research. Bibliometric analysis demonstrated that research productivity, mainly from Arab countries in pharmaceutical wastewater research, was relatively lagging behind. More research effort is required for Arab countries to catch up with those of non-Arab Middle Easter countries on pharmaceutical wastewater research.

Degradation of cefdinir from pharmaceutical waste water using immobilized Candida sp. SMN04 and biofilm formed on gravels.

Cefdinir being a semi-synthetic third generation cephalosporin antibiotic is considered as an emerging pollutant which demands removal from environment. Degradation of cefdinir by yeast Candida sp. SMN04 immobilized on various single and hybrid matrices was investigated using entrapment method. The biofilm forming ability of Candida sp. was evaluated by crystal violet staining assay and the formed biofilm was monitored by SEM and AFM analysis. The amount of exopolysaccharides (EPS) produced by Candida sp. was quantified and characterized by FTIR, HPLC and TGA analysis respectively. Cefdinir degradation from pharmaceutical wastewater was found to be 96.6% and 92.2% by PVA-alginate immobilized yeas tand yeast biofilm formed on gravels over a period of 48 h in batch mode. Effectiveness of the process was also tested involving continuous-flow column studies. This is the first successful attempt on cefdinir degradation using immobilized yeast cells and yeast biofilm on solid substrate.

Identification of Bacterial Population of Activated Sludge Process and Their Potentials in Pharmaceutical Effluent Treatment.

Aims/objectives: The cognition about microbial population of activated sludge and their treatment potential will be very useful for industrial wastewater treatment plant operation. Methodology: In this study microbial population of activated sludge process that was used for pharmaceutical wastewater has been investigated. Sampling was done from return sludge line and after serial dilution 1500 plates were studied. Methods for separating the bacteria from wastewater was pour plate method. All bacterial samples were purified using nutrient Agar and Macconkey Agar culture. Bacteria were separated from return sludge line and classified into 3 groups after biochemical tests and morphological analysis, These include positive bacteria of Bacillus genus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Flavobacterium. Results: The biodegradability study on pharmaceutical effluent using identified cultures in laboratory scale showed that Bacillus spp. are the most efficient bacteria for organic matter degradation. Conclusion: Results of this study showed that providing a microbial bank of these spp. can be useful for resistant operation of activated sludge.

Optimization of Xhhh strain biodegradation with metal ions for pharmaceautical wastewater treatment.

Effects of three ions, Mn2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+ on biological treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater by a functional strain Xhhh were investigated. Through orthogonal tests, Cu2+ was determined to be the most important factor influencing Xhhh biodegradation performance. Biodegradation kinetic experiments demonstrated that with Cu2+concentration at about 2.00 mg l-1, the maximum of specific growth rate and specific degradation rate were obtained to be 0.033 and 0.075 d-1, respectively. The optimal levels of Mn2+ (5.00 mg l-1), Cu2+ (2.00 mg l-1) and Zn2+ (5.00 mgl -1) were achieved based on experimental results of their effects on the activities of manganese peroxidase and lignin peroxidase, and biodegradation kinetic parameters. Among three types of biodegradation kinetic models (Monod, Tessier and Contois), Tessier model was found most reasonable for kinetics description of Xhhh growth (R2 = 0.995) and pollutants degradation (R2 = 0.970) in the case of metals optimization. Both kinetics evaluation and experimental results demonstrated that optimization with the three metals made a great contribution to Xhhh growth and COD removal for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment.