Development and Simulation of Deactivation Process of Favipiravir in Pharmaceutical Wastewater System

Favipiravir (FPV) has been widely used to treat COVID-19 patients in many countries, including Thailand, due to its potent antiviral activity. Several pharmaceutical manufacturers such as Chulabhorn Royal Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Facility (CPM) by Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA), are running at full capacity to formulate favipiravir drugs to meet the demand. Consequently, the wastewater discharged from the process contains a significant amount of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) such as FPV that could be harmful to humans and animals if released into the environment without proper treatment. Therefore, this study aims to develop the deactivation process of favipiravir presented in the wastewater, and then the deactivation process is simulated in SuperPro Designer Version 10 Program. The deactivation processes were designed and divided into 2 cases: base case using sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) 10% v/v and case II using ozone (16 g/L). Each case was separated into subcase A, without a filtration unit, and subcase B, with a filtration unit. The unit operations, such as deactivation, neutralization, and filtration used in this study were selected from the equipment available at CPM. Here we provide simulation and cost analysis information so that, CPM and other pharmaceutical manufacturers could select the scenario that suits the capacity of antiviral drug formulation per year.