Chapter 21 - Removal of emergent pollutants of waters

Abstract

Today, humanity faces a number of environmental challenges. Some are well described in the scientific literature, such as contamination by heavy metals, pesticides, and volatile organic compounds, while others are more recent, and their origin is considered directly related with advances in science and technology. In particular, nanomaterials, nanostructured waste, drugs and their by-products, metabolites of different origin, among others, are described as “emerging pollutants.” However, this term does not refer to the fact that these pollutants are new, but rather, refers to the fact that their discharges to the environment have increased to the point that they have become a risk to human health and ecosystems. Although this term was originally used to describe the worrying increase in the detection of bioactive substances of pharmacological origin detected in the environment, the list of so-called emerging pollutants has been growing. In this chapter, an introduction to these pollutants and the technologies for their removal is made, with particular emphasis placed on technologies based on functional polymers.