ReviewJournal of hazardous materials2023
Quaternary ammonium compounds of emerging concern: Classification, occurrence, fate, toxicity and antimicrobial resistance.
Review in Journal of hazardous materials, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 53 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
53 citing papers in PubMed, 232 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global technological trends in sustainable antimicrobial surface formulations: a patent-based review for cleaner healthcare environments.Future science OA · 2026Review
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- Mechanism and Molecular Design Principles of Cationic Surfactants: From Charge-Driven Membrane Interactions to Next-Generation Quaternary Ammonium Compounds.ChemMedChem · 2026Review
- Driving Antibiotic Resistance Evolution ofMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Metagenomic analysis of the human gut virome reveals functional signatures and viral stability across hospitalized and non-hospitalized diarrheal and non-diarrheal individuals.Gut pathogens · 2026Article
- A critical review of natural quorum-sensing inhibitors as molecular anti-virulence agents against phytopathogenic bacteria.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Article
- Comprehensive resistome and antibiotic profiling in wastewater and biosolids: a case study.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- One Health Approach to Sporothrix brasiliensis: Disinfection Strategies for Control and Prevention.Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical · 2026Article
- Overcoming Methicillin-ResistantResearch (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- From Environmental Threat to Control: A Review of Technologies for Removal of Quaternary Ammonium Compounds from Wastewater.Membranes · 2025Review
- Quantitative assessment of Benzalkonium residues in abattoir wastewater and evaluation of disinfectant application practices in Western Thailand.Journal of advanced veterinary and animal research · 2025Article
- One Earth-One Health to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance Having a Dual Mutation Pattern, Based on the Robust Self-Regulation and Perpetual Reconstruction of Ecosystems.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Phosphorylated Derivatives of Quaternary Ammonium Salts: Synthesis, X-Ray Crystal Structure, Antimicrobial Activity and Ecotoxicity.Current microbiology · 2025Article
- Induction of lipid A modification genes inJournal of medical microbiology · 2025Article
- ToxACoL: an endpoint-aware and task-focused compound representation learning paradigm for acute toxicity assessment.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Amplified hygiene and precautionary measures are of utmost importance to control the spread of COVID-19 and future infection; however, these changes in practice are projected to trigger a rise in the purchase, utilisation and hence, discharge of many disinfectants into the environment. While alcohol-based, hydrogen peroxide-based, and chlorine-based compounds have been used widely, quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) based disinfectants are of significant concern due to their overuse during this pandemic. This review presents the classification of disinfectants and their mechanism of action, focusing on QACs. Most importantly, the occurrence, fate, toxicity and antimicrobial resistance due to QACs are covered in this paper. Here we collated evidence from multiple studies and found rising trends of concern, including an increase in the mass load of QACs at a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) by 331% compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an increases in the concentration of 62% in residential dust, resulting in high concentrations of QACs in human blood and breast milk and suggesting that these could be potential sources of persistent QACs in infants. In addition to increased toxicity to human and aquatic life, increased use of QACs and accelerated use of antibiotics and antimicrobials during the COVID-19 pandemic could multiply the threat to antimicrobial resistance.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.