Abstract
Micropollutants or microcontaminants or emerging contaminants are compounds that are divided into five major groups such as polar pesticides, perfluorinated compounds, chlorinated kerosenes, personal hygiene products, and drugs that have gone unnoticed, because of their low concentrations in water from ngL−1 to μgL−1. These can behave as endocrine disruptors due to their bioaccumulation, having harmful effects on human health such as fertility problems, growth, metabolic variations, and hormonal disorders; in addition to this, they cause environmental problems, since their elimination is not contemplated within the wastewater treatment plants due to the design they have; hence, they can eliminate nutrients with concentrations greater than gL−1. These contaminants can be found in both surface water and groundwater and have been increasing in parallel with the production of chemicals considered potentially dangerous. The levels are variable examples; in the tributaries, pharmaceutical compounds are present in low concentrations compared to the concentration levels that are present in the effluent. So its occurrence is dependent on the weather station, which increases during dry season and decreases in wet season, within the contamination of micropollutants contributed by the pharmaceutical industry are the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, sulfamethoxazole, triclosan and carbamazepine, being the main source of contamination.
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