Advancement in treatment of wastewater: Fate of emerging contaminants

The scarcity of industrial and domestic use water has become an important issue as industrial operations and localized pollution have burgeoned over the last decade. Wastewater (WW) treatment for recycling and reuse is gaining importance as an alternate source of water supply to circumvent water shortages. Wastewater treatment requires thorough planning, design, construction, and management of treatment facilities in order to discharge the treated water to the aquatic environment or for recycling and reuse. One detrimental effect of growing populations and urbanization has been the release of many persistent emerging contaminants (ECs) to the environment, mainly detected in WW. The entry of these ECs to the aquatic environment through wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) may cause different ecological risks such as reproductive toxicity, endocrine disruption, and microbial resistance. The quantification of ECs (in ng or pg level) in complex matrices, such as WW samples recognized through non-target screening approaches, has played a key role in the planning and design of water treatment facilities. The purpose of this review is to provide information about advancements in wastewater treatment technologies such as constructed wetland (CW) and advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and the fate of emerging contaminants during these treatments. Further, this review also reports the ecological effects of these contaminants and their by-products formed during various advanced WW treatment processes. The review also discusses advancements in different analytical techniques for the analysis of ECs in WW.