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Removal of emerging contaminants from wastewater using advanced treatments. A review
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This review examines advanced wastewater treatment methods for removing emerging contaminants including microplastics, highlighting adsorption using novel materials such as cyclodextrin polymers, metal-organic frameworks, and chitosan alongside advanced oxidation processes as the most promising strategies. Conventional wastewater treatment systems fail to capture microplastics and associated chemical contaminants, making next-generation treatment approaches essential for reducing the discharge of plastic particles into aquatic environments.
The rise of emerging contaminants in waters challenges the scientific community and water treatment stakeholders to design remediation techniques that are simple, practical, inexpensive, effective, and environmentally friendly. Emerging contaminants include antibiotics, hormones, illicit drugs, endocrine disruptors, cosmetics, personal care products, pesticides, surfactants, industrial products, microplastics, nanoparticles, and nanomaterials. Removing those contaminants is not easy because classical wastewater treatment systems are not designed to handle emerging contaminants, and contaminants often occur as traces in complex organo-mineral mixtures. Here, we review advanced treatments for the removal of emerging contaminants in wastewater, with focus on adsorption-oriented processes using non-conventional adsorbents such as cyclodextrin polymers, metal–organic frameworks, molecularly imprinted polymers, chitosan, and nanocellulose. We describe biological-based technologies for the degradation and removal of emerging contaminants. Then, we present advanced oxidation processes as the most promising strategies because of their simplicity and efficiency.
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Researchers reviewed emerging contaminants — including pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, and microplastics — that persist through conventional wastewater treatment, finding that advanced technologies such as membrane bioreactors and oxidation processes show promise for removal but face barriers including high cost, energy demand, and insufficient regulatory frameworks.
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Researchers reviewed current challenges in monitoring and managing emerging environmental contaminants — including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, microplastics, and nanomaterials — examining their increasing detection across environmental sectors and the significant ecological and human health threats they pose.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.