Emerging pollutants (EPs), also known as micropollutants, have been a major issue for the global population in recent years as a result of the potential threats they bring to the environment and human health. Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), antibiotics, and hormones that are used in great demand for health and cosmetic purposes have rapidly culminated in the emergence of environmental pollutants. EPs impact the environment in a variety of ways. EPs originate from animal or human sources, either directly discharged into waterbodies or slowly leached via soils. As a result, water quality will deteriorate, drinking water sources will be contaminated, and health issues will arise. Since drinking water treatment plants rely on water resources, the prevalence of this contamination in aquatic environments, particularly surface water, is a severe problem. The review looks into several related issues on EPs in water environment, including methods in removing EPs. Despite its benefits and downsides, the EPs treatment processes comprise several approaches such as physico-chemical, biological, and advanced oxidation processes. Nonetheless, one of the membrane-based filtration methods, ultrafiltration, is considered as one of the technologies that promises the best micropollutant removal in water. With interesting properties including a moderate operating manner and great selectivity, this treatment approach is more popular than conventional ones. This study presents a comprehensive summary of EP’s existence in the environment, its toxicological consequences on health, and potential removal and treatment strategies.

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Current practice of determining river water quality in Malaysia is based mainly on physicochemical components. Perhaps, owing to the lack of information on habitat requirements and ecological diversity of aquatic macroinvertebrates and on unearthly taxonomic key of benthic macroinvertebrates in this region makes it less popular than conventional methods. The study took place in three rivers in the state of Johor, Southern Peninsula of Malaysia, which exhibited different degrees of disturbances and physical properties, namely Sungai Ayer Hitam Besar, Sg Berasau, and Sg Mengkibol. Benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled using rectangular dipnet with frame dimension 0.5 m × 0.3 m. Although physicochemical elements such as water temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen (DO) were measured using a YSI Professional Plus handheld multiparameter instrument, other parameters such as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD 5 ), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solid (TSS), and ammoniacal nitrogen (NH 3 N) were tested using the procedure of APHA Standard Method. The study found that the status of water quality varies among the three rivers. A multivariate analysis, the canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), was applied to elucidate the relationships between biological assemblages of species and their environment using PAST (version 2) software. The present findings reveal that humaninduced activities are the ultimate causes of the alteration in macroinvertebrate biodiversity.

Nanomaterials, classified as emerging pollutants that are toxic to the environment, are known to bioaccumulate across different trophic levels in the aquatic ecosystem. This study therefore investigates the distribution of silver and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in the aquatic environment of Skudai River, Johor, Malaysia. Water, sediment, plant, and fish samples were collected seasonally along four sites along Skudai River between May 2018 and April 2019. All samples were subjected to Ag analysis using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The analysis demonstrated that the concentration of Ag detected in water samples ranging from 0.001 to 0.505 mg/L was the lowest, whereas in the plants, 0.235 to 4.713 mg/kg of Ag was quantified. The upper sediments contained 0.036 to 28.115 mg/kg of Ag, whilst fish samples presented the highest accumulation of Ag, averaging between 9.144 and 53.784 mg/kg of Ag. Subsequently, the formation of silver nanoparticles was further proven by TEM-EDX analysis, where the detected size of AgNPs ranged from 20 nm to 35 nm. The overriding conclusion implied by bioaccumulation factor (BAF) and biota–sediment accumulation factor (BSAF) calculations suggested that Skudai River was indeed polluted by Ag and AgNPs. The values obtained stipulated that silver accumulation is occurring at an alarming rate and could therefore endanger fish consumers.