ABSTRACT
Urbanization and affluent lifestyle activities has led to the contamination of the biosphere with pollutants that are hard to degrade. Pollutants, especially refractory ones, have long lifecycles as they are recalcitrant and therefore need to be removed from polluted environments. Refractory pollutants are those pollutants that cannot be degraded biologically and display poor ratios of biological oxygen demand to chemical oxygen demand. These compounds can either be organic in nature and released by the pharmaceutical or pesticide industries, or inorganic metal nanoparticles. Their presence in the ecosystem inhibits bacterial growth and are toxic to plants and animals. A variety of methods are available for the removal of refractory pollutants from the ecosystem, like the advanced oxidation process [hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)], ozonation, ultraviolet (UV) radiation (H2O2/UV process and Fenton’s reaction), the electrochemical oxidation process, and membranes alone and in combination; each method has its own advantages and limitations. This chapter elaborates the use of membrane technology for wastewater treatment and its prospects.
