Science and Math Program, Asian University for Women, Chattogram 4000, Bangladesh.
School of Information Systems and Modelling, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia; Mechanical Engineering Department, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar 31952, Saudi Arabia.
J Hazard Mater. 2021 Aug 15;416:125912. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.125912. Epub 2021 Apr 23.
Emerging contaminants (ECs) in wastewater have recently attracted the attention of researchers as they pose significant risks to human health and wildlife. This paper presents the state-of-art technologies used to remove ECs from wastewater through a comprehensive review. It also highlights the challenges faced by existing EC removal technologies in wastewater treatment plants and provides future research directions. Many treatment technologies like biological, chemical, and physical approaches have been advanced for removing various ECs. However, currently, no individual technology can effectively remove ECs, whereas hybrid systems have often been found to be more efficient. A hybrid technique of ozonation accompanied by activated carbon was found significantly effective in removing some ECs, particularly pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Despite the lack of extensive research, nanotechnology may be a promising approach as nanomaterial incorporated technologies have shown potential in removing different contaminants from wastewater. Nevertheless, most existing technologies are highly energy and resource-intensive as well as costly to maintain and operate. Besides, most proposed advanced treatment technologies are yet to be evaluated for large-scale practicality. Complemented with techno-economic feasibility studies of the treatment techniques, comprehensive research and development are therefore necessary to achieve a full and effective removal of ECs by wastewater treatment plants.
新兴污染物（ECs）在废水中引起了研究人员的关注，因为它们对人类健康和野生动物构成了重大风险。本文通过全面综述介绍了用于从废水中去除 ECs 的最先进技术。它还强调了废水处理厂中现有 EC 去除技术面临的挑战，并提供了未来的研究方向。已经开发出许多处理技术，如生物、化学和物理方法，用于去除各种 ECs。然而，目前没有一种单独的技术可以有效地去除 ECs，而混合系统通常被发现更有效。臭氧氧化与活性炭相结合的混合技术被发现对去除一些 ECs，特别是药品和农药非常有效。尽管缺乏广泛的研究，但纳米技术可能是一种很有前途的方法，因为纳米材料结合技术已显示出从废水中去除不同污染物的潜力。然而，大多数现有的技术都是高能耗和资源密集型的，而且维护和运行成本也很高。此外，大多数提出的高级处理技术尚未进行大规模实用性评估。因此，需要进行综合研究和开发，以配合处理技术的技术经济可行性研究，从而使废水处理厂能够充分有效地去除 ECs。
