ABSTRACT
Emerging contaminants (ECs) are highly mobile in the aqueous environment and persistent in nature. The physicochemical properties of the ECs have been discussed in this chapter. They derive their persistent nature largely due to the complex molecular structure. Furthermore, ECs have low k ow values, which indicates that they are hydrophilic in nature. The hydrophilicity of such ECs prevents them from easily being separated from the aqueous solution. Hence, conventional treatment technologies are not easily able to remove them. In this chapter, the performance of different treatment systems (physical, chemical, biological, and hybrid) have been assessed in terms of their ability to remove ECs. However, most of the studies pertaining to advanced oxidation processes, and other advanced treatment technologies have been only limited to laboratory scale using synthetic wastewater. The laboratory scale studies cannot completely simulate the setup of full-scale studies, due to various reasons, such as variation in organic load, presence of interfering agents, such as other, different ions, organic matter and suspended matter. In this context, few case studies of the performance of full-scale treatment plants targeting the removal of ECs have been also discussed in the chapter.
