The rapidly increasing presence, occurrence and effects of emerging pollutants on humans are of great concern worldwide. This article presents information on fate, types and various technologies for the reduction of emerging pollutants from wastewater. An attempt to provide a piece of clearer information on emerging pollutants and techniques for their removal was conducted. A survey of the literature was conducted based on accomplished information on emerging pollutants, presence and removal from the environment using various water and wastewater treatment (WWT) techniques with the key aim of reducing the impacts of EMPs. Information on the fates and treatment of emerging pollutants published was collected from databanks such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Elsevier, Springer, Scopus and Magiran using emerging pollutants (EMPs), antibiotics, WWT and environmental pollution control (EPC) as the keywords. The articles obtained covered the period between 1987 and 2022. The findings revealed that a total of 4802 articles were analysed in these libraries. The analysis resulted in 638 relevant journal articles to the keywords as follows 96, 128, 160 and 254 for EMPs, antibiotics, water and WWT and EPC, respectively. The study established that EMPs are grouped into five groups namely Agrochemicals, Industrial additives, Stimulants, Personal care products, and Pharmaceuticals and sub-grouped into 18 subgroups. There are more than 1036 individual EMPs in the environment. It was revealed that pharmaceutical compounds were the most commonly EMPs studied and discussed. Adsorption, electrochemical, advanced oxidation technologies, irradiation and biological processes were the most frequently used techniques for the removal of EMPs. Recent emerging treatment techniques in the field of electrochemical, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and combinations of AOPs with biological water treatment processes for the reduction of EMPs, merit and demerit (limitations) of techniques used in the reduction EMPs are discussed.
Key words: Wastewater treatment; databanks, emerging pollutants; pollution control, antibiotics, Stimulants, Personal care products
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