Traceability of Emerging Contaminants from Wastewater to Drinking Water

Abstract

Due to the incomplete elimination of some human contaminants during wastewater treatment, some of these compounds can be found in surface waters or groundwaters which are used as raw waters for drinking water production. The treatment efficiency to completely eliminate these emerging contaminants or to partially remove them will determine the quality of the final treated water. Up to today, few studies have been performed to evaluate the efficiency of the usual drinking water treatments in eliminating emerging contaminants. Moreover, every day new potential emerging contaminants are discovered and new disinfection by-products are also generated during treatment, with a total ignorance of their potential toxicity or effect on human health. In this chapter, a summary of the state of the art of emerging contaminant occurrence and elimination during drinking water processes at the bench scale or real scale is presented. A study of the presence and elimination of a new group of human contaminants, susceptible to being considered as a new emerging contaminant group, in a real drinking water treatment plant in Spain has also been included.