Skip to main content
Log in

Removal of emerging contaminants from wastewater using advanced treatments. A review

  • Review
  • Published:
Environmental Chemistry Letters Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The rise of emerging contaminants in waters challenges the scientific community and water treatment stakeholders to design remediation techniques that are simple, practical, inexpensive, effective, and environmentally friendly. Emerging contaminants include antibiotics, hormones, illicit drugs, endocrine disruptors, cosmetics, personal care products, pesticides, surfactants, industrial products, microplastics, nanoparticles, and nanomaterials. Removing those contaminants is not easy because classical wastewater treatment systems are not designed to handle emerging contaminants, and contaminants often occur as traces in complex organo-mineral mixtures. Here, we review advanced treatments for the removal of emerging contaminants in wastewater, with focus on adsorption-oriented processes using non-conventional adsorbents such as cyclodextrin polymers, metal–organic frameworks, molecularly imprinted polymers, chitosan, and nanocellulose. We describe biological-based technologies for the degradation and removal of emerging contaminants. Then, we present advanced oxidation processes as the most promising strategies because of their simplicity and efficiency.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

source: Lorenzo A. Picos-Corrales, Sinaloa, Mexico

Fig. 2

Source Éva Fenyvesi, Budapest, Hungary; Marc Fourmentin, Dunkerque, France

Fig. 3

Source Marc Fourmentin, Dunkerque, France; Éva Fenyvesi, Budapest, Hungary; Grégorio Crini, Besançon, France

Fig. 4

Source Éva Fenyvesi, Budapest, Hungary

Fig. 5

Source Corina Bradu, Bucharest, Romania

Fig. 6

source Mohammad Mahmudul Huq, Saskatoon, Canada

Fig. 7

Source: Monica Magureanu, Magurele, Romania

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

NM-C and GC (Besançon, France) thanks the FEDER (Fonds Européen de Développment Régional) for its financial support (NIRHOFEX Program: “Innovative materials for wastewater treatment”) and the Université de Franche-Comté (France) for the research grant awarded to Guest Professor CB. ARLRo (Porto, Portugal) would like to thank FCT funding under the DL57/2016 Transitory Norm Programme and the scientific collaboration under projects: PTDC/QUI-QAN/30521/2017—POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030521—funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020—Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) and by national funds (PIDDAC) through FCT/MCTES and Base-UIDB/50020/2020 and Programmatic-UIDP/50020/2020 funding of LSRE-LCM of the Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, funded by national funds through FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC). MM and CB (Romania) acknowledges financial support from Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization CNCS/CCCDI-UEFISCDI—projects no. PN-IV-PCE143/2021 and PN-III-P2-2.1-26PTE/2020, respectively. Francesca Mapelli (Milan, Italy) acknowledges the Cariplo Foundation for its financial support (GA n° 2018-0995-WARFARE “Novel wastewater disinfection treatments to mitigate the spread of antibiotic resistance in agriculture”).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Nadia Morin-Crini or Grégorio Crini.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declares no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Morin-Crini, N., Lichtfouse, E., Fourmentin, M. et al. Removal of emerging contaminants from wastewater using advanced treatments. A review. Environ Chem Lett 20, 1333–1375 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01379-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-021-01379-5

Keywords

Navigation