The Environmental and Health Impacts of Steroids and Hormones in Wastewater Effluent, as Well as Existing Removal Technologies: A Review

Abstract

Micro-pollutants especially estrogens, progesterone, androgens, glucocorticoids, and growth hormones, are biological and chemical impurities that find their way into natural aquatic environments in trace quantities (ng/L), and possess a significant disturbance by impacting human and aquatic life. Due to the significant progress in in the analysis and detection techniques, these trace elements have been observed and quantified in several studies. However, as a result of limited methods and management technology, the adverse effects by these micro-pollutants in surface and coastal water is largely unknown. For this study, the compounds of estrogens, progesterone, androgens, glucocorticoids, and growth hormones have been selected according to their high frequent detection value in environmental waters. The concentration of the selected steroid and hormones ranges from 0.1–196 ng/L (estrogens), less than 0.1 to 439 ng/L (progesterone), 0.06–86 ± 2 (androgens), less than 0.1 to 433 ng/L (glucocorticoids), and 26.6 ng/g to 100 ng/L (growth hormones), and their percentage of removal efficiency varies from less than 10% to 99%, as the measurement of compounds concentration was found to be very low. Here, we report that future studies are necessary to detect the entry routes of these compounds into the environmental water, as well as to explore the technological approaches which are able to resolve this issue permanently.