Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) are a class of pharmaceuticals showing a current boom in consumption worldwide, but whose environmental occurrence and toxicology just began to be investigated with the advent of analytical methods able to detect their low levels (down to ppb) in the environment. Significant advances in water treatment systems effective at eliminating TCAs still need to be demonstrated to remediate contamination of waters by such contaminants of emerging concern (CECs).

This project will provide a strong fundamental background on an innovative integrated nanotechnology, namely microemulsion-assisted extraction coupled with photodegradation, based on self-assembled nanofluids, aiming to achieve separation and destruction of five representative TCAs from wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents. For quantitative assessment of TCA removal efficiency, of photodegradation kinetics, and identification of photo-pathway intermediates and products, a spectroscopy and chromatography-based approach will be undertaken. For wastewater remediation, this project will provide a new application of microemulsions as extraction systems for selected model CECs in WWTP effluents and a novel tool – a “nano-reactor” for their photodegradation, to operate here at lab scale and perhaps in actual WWTPs in the future. 

In line with TE2021 call objectives, another goal of this project is to build around the Principal Investigator a competitive team of talented young researchers