A critical review on emerging contaminants: origin, discernment, and remedies

Discharge of untreated water may cause serious health diseases. There have been studies on effluent concentration from wastewater treatment plants of pharmaceutical and personal care product industries. In this paper, the authors have reviewed the concentration of water discharged through the surface water and effluent of wastewater treatment plants, and secondary sludge treatment. Significant compounds with their maximum concentration and removal efficiency are reviewed, and the method applied is then compared with previous results. Challenges to design instruments and techniques to decrease the concentration of endocrine-disrupting compounds from the effluent and, to reduce the toxicity of EDs in drinkable water and aquatic environments are discussed. Personal care products (PCPs), endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), pharmaceuticals (PhACs), and their transformation products are examples of emerging contaminants (ECs) whose inclusion at trace levels in treated wastewater is affecting human health and the aquatic ecosystem. Despite advancements in treatment technologies, the design of existing treatment plants is often unsuitable for removing these ECs, and there are few published health standards that guide the treatment of these pollutants. Many new ECs are introduced into the environment without being detected. This paper reviews existing research that provides reliable and quantitative information on PhACs, PCPs, and EDCs, and their concentrations in surface water, groundwater, drinking water, and treated wastewater, as well as the removal efficiency of different treatment processes for different emerging pollutants, with a focus on recent studies regarding the fate and behavior of the contaminants in wastewater treatment plants and the environment.