The widespread use of pharmaceutical chemicals has brought substantial benefits to society over the past few centuries, however, the presence of pharmaceuticals in our environment has also created new health risks for humans, animals, and the ecosystem. The active, quantitative, removal of these contaminant chemicals is often difficult by conventional water treatment methods. A promising new approach is the use of Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs), which typically utilize the hydroxyl radical (●OH) generated in-situ, to react with, and destroy, unwanted pollutant chemicals. However, for certain chemical classes ●OH-based remediation can create hazardous by-products, and water matrix side-reactions can also significantly reduce the efficiency of this approach. An alternative approach is to use sulfate radicals (SO4-●) in AOPs. These radicals are also strongly oxidizing but react to destroy contaminant chemicals by different mechanisms – which can often be more effective. As for all AOP-based water treatments, their large-scale application depends on the reactivity of SO4-● with the contaminant pollutants. We have investigated the feasibility of using SO4-● instead of ●OH radicals in AOPs for pharmaceutical-contaminated water remediation, based on measured reaction kinetics and byproducts formation, for important pharmaceutical classes such as antibiotics, pesticides, and estrogenic steroids.