ArticleEnvironmental science & technology2023
Chemical Imaging of Pharmaceuticals in Biofilms for Wastewater Treatment Using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry.
Article in Environmental science & technology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mass spectrometry imaging reveals different allocation of the starting steps of benzalkonium biotransformation in wastewater biofilms.Communications engineering · 2026Article
- Micropollutants and Their Interactions With Relevant Environmental Viruses.Environmental microbiology · 2025Review
- Pharmaceutical micropollutants removal and NBiodegradation · 2025Review
- Microbial extracellular polymeric substances in the environment, technology and medicine.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment is a global water quality challenge for several reasons, such as deleterious effects on ecological and human health, antibiotic resistance development, and endocrine-disrupting effects on aquatic organisms. To optimize their removal from the water cycle, understanding the processes during biological wastewater treatment is crucial. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry imaging was successfully applied to investigate and analyze the distribution of pharmaceuticals as well as endogenous molecules in the complex biological matrix of biofilms for wastewater treatment. Several compounds and their localization were identified in the biofilm section, including citalopram, ketoconazole, ketoconazole transformation products, and sertraline. The images revealed the pharmaceuticals gathered in distinct sites of the biofilm matrix. While citalopram penetrated the biofilm deeply, sertraline remained confined in its outer layer. Both pharmaceuticals seemed to mainly colocalize with phosphocholine lipids. Ketoconazole concentrated in small areas with high signal intensity. The approach outlined here presents a powerful strategy for visualizing the chemical composition of biofilms for wastewater treatment and demonstrates its promising utility for elucidating the mechanisms behind pharmaceutical and antimicrobial removal in biological wastewater treatment.
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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.