Antineoplastic drugs are pharmaceuticals that have been raising concerns among the scientific community due to: (i) their increasing prescription in the fight against the disease of the twentieth century (cancer); (ii) their recalcitrance to conventional wastewater treatments; (iii) their poor environmental biodegradability; and (iv) their potential risk to any eukaryotic organism. This emerges the urgency in finding solutions to mitigate the entrance and accumulation of these hazardous chemicals in the environment. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been taken into consideration to improve the degradation of antineoplastic drugs in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), but the formation of by-products that are more toxic or exhibit a different toxicity profile than the parent drug is frequently reported. This work evaluates the performance of a nanofiltration pilot unit, equipped with a Desal 5DK membrane, in the treatment of real WWTP effluents contaminated (without spiking) with eleven pharmaceuticals, five of which were never studied before. Average removals of 68 & PLUSMN; 23% were achieved for the eleven compounds, with decreasing risks from feed to permeate for aquatic organisms from receiving waterbodies (with the exception of cyclophosphamide, for which a high risk was estimated in the permeate). Aditionally, no significative impact on the growth and germination of three different seeds (Lepidium sativum, Sinapis alba, and Sorghum saccharatum) were determined for permeate matrix in comparison to the control.& nbsp;This research was financially supported by: (i) Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031297 (CytoStraTech) -funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020-Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI) and by national funds (PIDDAC) through FCT/MCTES; (ii) NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000069 (Healthy Waters) co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) , through North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020) , under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement; (iii) UIDB/04750/2020 (EPIUnit) and LA/P/0064/2020 (ITR) , funded by national funds through the FCT-Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P.; (iv) LA/P/0045/2020 (ALiCE) , Base Fundings UIDB/00511/2020 and UIDP/00511/2020 (LEPABE) and UIDB/50020/2020 and UIDP/50020/2020 (LSRE-LCM) , funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) . This work was also funded by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia/Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (FCT/MCTES, Portugal) through national funds to iNOVA4Health (UIDB/04462/2020 and UIDP/04462/2020) and the Associate Laboratory LS4FUTURE (LA/P/0087/2020) . Teresa I.A. Gouveia and Vanessa Jorge Pereira would like to thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for Ph.D. (SFRH/BD/147301/2019) and CEECIND/02919/2018 grants, respectively
