Use of Permeable Reactive Barriers in the Removal of ACT and DCF from Effluents of Wastewater Treatment Plants

Kalmakhanova M.S. Khabashova A.U. Nurlybayeva A.N. Orynbayev S.A. Gomes H.T. Snow D.D.
January 2026 Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)

Sustainability (Switzerland)
2026 #18 Issue 1

Pharmaceuticals such as paracetamol and diclofenac (DCF) are among the most extensively consumed drugs worldwide and are continuously released into municipal and hospital wastewater due to incomplete human metabolism. Their persistent presence in aquatic environments, typically ranging from ng/L to µg/L, raises concerns due to endocrine disruption, chronic toxicity, and the promotion of antimicrobial resistance. Conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) remove 70–90% of ACT but less than 30% of DCF, primarily because these systems were not designed to target low-concentration, recalcitrant micropollutants. As a result, pharmaceuticals frequently pass into treated effluents, highlighting the need for advanced, sustainable, and passive treatment solutions. Permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) have emerged as a promising technology for the interception and removal of pharmaceuticals from both wastewater treatment plant effluents and groundwater. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of ACT and DCF occurrence, environmental behavior, and ecotoxicological risks, followed by a detailed evaluation of PRB performance using advanced reactive media such as geopolymers, activated carbon, carbon nanotubes, and hybrid composites. Reported removal efficiencies exceed 90% for ACT and 70–95% for DCF, depending on media composition and operating conditions. The primary removal mechanisms include adsorption, ion exchange, π–π interactions, hydrogen bonding, and redox transformation. The novelty of this review lies in systematically synthesizing recent laboratory- and pilot-scale findings on PRBs for pharmaceutical removal, identifying critical knowledge gaps—including long-term field validation, media regeneration, and performance under realistic wastewater matrices—and outlining future research directions for scaling PRBs toward full-scale implementation. The study demonstrates that PRBs represent a viable and sustainable tertiary treatment option for reducing pharmaceutical loads in aquatic environments.

contaminants of emerging concern , permeable reactive barriers , pharmaceutical compounds

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Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, M. Kh. Dulaty Taraz University, Taraz, 080012, Kazakhstan
CIMO, LA SusTEC, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, Bragança, 5300-253, Portugal
Nebraska Water Center, Part of the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute, University of Nebraska, 2021 Transformation Drive, Lincoln, 68588-0844, NE, United States

Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technology
CIMO
Nebraska Water Center

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