## 3 Pharmaceuticals Pollutants
### Occurrence, Fate and Removal Technologies of Pharmaceuticals in Water
#### 3.1.1 Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs  
Pharmaceuticals have become a major concern as emerging pollutants due to their low biodegradability, high persistence, and ease of bioaccumulation. Pharmaceuticals or drugs are widely used to improve the health of humans and animals. Antibiotics, analgesics, anti-inflammatory drugs, lipid regulators, hormones, and antiretroviral therapies are all common administered drugs. These biologically active compounds can be found in hospitals, pharmaceutical industries, and landfill effluents. The sources and trend of pharmaceutical pollutants are depicted in Figure 1. Pharmaceuticals, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), have been increasingly utilized in many parts of the world, and their presence in the environment has sparked intense interest, since many effluents from urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are  
Figure 2: Sources of pharmaceuticals pollutants. polluted with these drug residues. NSAIDs are among the most used pharmaceutical products that are available without a prescription as over the counter drugs [3]. The production and consumption of NSAIDs has increased substantially in the past years, thus introducing large amounts of these substances into the environment in an unutilized or metabolized form [31; 32; 33]. Diclofenac, ibuprofen, naproxen, ketoprofen and salicylic acid are the most well-known classes of these drugs, with analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic effects in humans [34]. NSAIDs have been found in effluents, surface water and seawater [3; 35]. Industrial and municipal wastewater are listed among the primary sources with huge potential to pollute groundwater supplies. NSAID compounds have a weak acidic character and a low adsorption into sludge. Ibuprofen is frequently metabolized within the liver, and its metabolites are biochemically active and toxic, especially to invertebrates and algae [36]. Conventional wastewater treatment methods are inadequate to remove or degrade the vast majority of these compounds, and they are only partially effective. NSAID residues persist in treated water and have been found to accumulate in drinking water. Although their concentrations in the environment are generally at trace levels (ng/L to g/L), this amount may cause toxic effects [37; 38] and they might concentrate, as a result. Several techniques for removing these compounds from water are being developed. NSAIDs have been eliminated using various techniques such as adsorption, oxidation, heterogeneous photocatalysis, combined membrane, and electrochemical degradation. Among the techniques used to treat NSAID pollutants, adsorption is the method of choice due to the low-cost process with a high removal efficiency [34]. Activated carbon with hydrophobicity, surface functionality, pore structure, high surface area, and high adsorptive capacity is used as an efficient adsorbent for water treatment, particularly for low pollutant concentration water remediation [34; 39]. Antibiotics are the most studied pharmaceutical pollutants due to their relatively high concentrations in wastewaters [40; 41]. Rare studies on NSAIDs removal from the aqueous phase using activated carbon can be found in the literature. [PERSON] et al. [38], studied the adsorption of ibuprofen, naproxen, ketoprofen, and diclofenac onto a low-cost activated carbon made from olive waste cakes. Low-cost carbonaceous materials, such as carbon black, were used as adsorbents for naproxen and ketoprofen [39]. [PERSON] et al. [42], reported the adsorption of salicylic acid, acetylsalicylic acid, and diclofenac-sodium on activated carbons. [PERSON] et al. [43], investigated diclofenac sodium adsorption from aqueous solutions using surface-modified or oxidized activated carbons. As adsorbents of diclofenac from the aqueous phase, powdered activated carbon and activated carbon prepared from olive stones were used [44].