*DIPLOMARBEIT*

Degradation of cytostatic drugs: Determination of oxidation kinetics for three anti-cancer drugs

Problem:

Cytostatic drugs are widely used during chemotherapy to treat various types of cancers (and therefore they are also referred to as anti-cancer drugs). After administration of these substances, they are partly metabolized and the metabolites, together with the original drug, are excreted and directed to the wastewater. Cytostatic drugs are often highly toxic compounds, which are not readily degraded during conventional waste water treatment. Once they reach surface waters they might negatively affect water organisms, or even humans despite their low concentrations.

Tasks:

The aim of this work is to experimentally determine the degradation kinetics of three cytostatic drugs in water, in three types of oxidative processes, namely UV oxidation, ozonation (O3) and the combination UV/O3. The experiments will be performed in a bench scale reactor. To determine the kinetics, the concentration of the compounds is measured during the processes using a HPLC-MS/MS-method.