ABSTRACT
Water is an essential element to all life (i.e., plants, animals, and humans), and access to clean and safe drinking water is critical to human health. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that more than 700 million people currently do not have sources of clean and safe drinking water (WHO 2014). The problem regarding the scarcity of clean water is especially prevalent in developing countries, where there is an urgent need for sustainable treatment processes and infrastructure for clean and safe drinking water. Developed countries also need to improve water treatment systems as a result of contamination caused by anthropogenic activities. Contaminants of emerging concern such as cyanotoxins, pesticides, industrial synthetic compounds, pharmaceuticals, hormones, and personal care products, as well as the effluent of wastewater treatment plants, have been found in drinking water sources (Agha et al. 2012; Barros-Becker et al. 2012; Graham et al. 2010; Ji et al. 2010). Moreover, water quality standards are getting more stringent to reduce health risks from contaminated drinking water and meet increased demands for clean water for the public (Qu et al. 2013a). There is a critical global need for sustainable technologies to meet the demands for clean and safe drinking water.
