Micropollutants in Reclaimed Wastewater

"Increasing water scarcity and dwindling resources make wastewater recycling increasingly important. Wastewater treated in treatment plants can be used as recycled water; despite containing nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, wastewater treated in treatment plants may also contain harmful components. Although conventional wastewater treatment plants can purify certain parameters, they cannot completely remove harmful substances such as pharmaceuticals, antibiotics and microplastics. This situation may cause reclaimed water to affect human and environmental health negatively. For this reason, wastewater treatment systems need to be developed and harmful components should be removed from wastewater more effectively. Although benefiting from recycled water is important for the sustainable management of water and the protection of water resources, the inadequacy of existing secondary treatment technologies and harmful substances raise concerns about water reuse. For this purpose, the use of tertiary treatments becomes important. Activated carbon and ion exchange for micropollutants in purified water, and disinfection systems for pathogens are the most commonly applied systems as tertiary treatment. While organic matter and some pollutants can be removed with activated carbon, this method has limited effect in removing micropollutants. UV irradiation and chlorination, among the disinfection methods, are widely used to remove pathogens. Membrane filtration, electrochemistry, catalytic processes and reverse osmosis are treatment methods that have proven effective in removing different pollutants, and detailed information is presented in this section."