Chronic toxicity and environmental risk assessment of antivirals in Ceriodaphnia dubia and Raphidocelis subcapitata.

Antiviral drugs are a class of medications used for treating viral infections. Due to their widespread use, especially in cases of pandemics and limited human metabolism, antivirals have been detected in multiple environmental matrices. This study aims to evaluate the chronic effects of acyclovir, efavirenz, lamivudine and zidovudine using Ceriodaphnia dubia and Raphidocelis subcapitata. The results with R. subcapitata showed the following toxicities: zidovudine (IC50 = 5.442 mg L-1) < acyclovir (IC50 = 3.612 mg L-1) < lamivudine (IC50 = 3.013 mg L-1) < efavirenz (IC50 = 0.034 mg L-1). The results of the chronic bioassay with C. dubia demonstrated that zidovudine is the least toxic (EC50 = 5.671 mg L-1), followed by acyclovir (EC50 = 3.062 mg L-1), lamivudine (EC50 = 1.345 mg L-1) and efavirenz (EC50 = 0.026 mg L-1). Both species have been shown to be sensitive to efavirenz. A risk quotient (RQ) was calculated, and efavirenz had an RQ greater than 1 for both species, and lamivudine had an RQ greater than 1 for C. dubia, representing a high ecological risk for these organisms. Antivirals pose a significant environmental risk to aquatic organisms and should be taken into consideration in future monitoring of water sources.

Enzymatic hydrolysis of floatable fatty wastes from dairy and meat food-processing industries and further anaerobic digestion.

The wastewater from food-processing industries is generally heavily charged with lipids and proteins. Flotation process is commonly applied to separate the hydrophobic material phase, producing flotation froth, a waste that has high levels of fats and proteins. Enzymatic hydrolysis may be used to overcome the difficulty of fat biotransformation in a subsequent anaerobic digestion. In the present work, wastes from the flotation process of two industries (dairy and poultry slaughterhouse) were hydrolyzed with a commercial lipase and without enzyme addition (control). The effect of adjusting the pH at the beginning of the hydrolytic assays was also investigated. The long chain free fatty acids (LCFAs) released were identified and quantified and 5-d digestion assays were conducted with the hydrolyzed material. The results indicated that the hydrolysis assays conducted with initial pH adjusted to 7.0 and the utilization of a commercial enzyme promoted a higher increase in amounts of LCFAs, particularly of unsaturated acids. In most anaerobic digestion assays, the specific methane production showed a decreasing trend with the increase of unsaturated fatty acids in the medium. In general, the utilization of a commercial enzyme (lipase) in the hydrolysis process did not contribute to enhancing methane production in 5-d anaerobic digestion assays.