An Overview of Nanofiltration and Nanoadsorption Technologies to Emerging Pollutants Treatment

Abstract

The presence of emerging contaminants in water resources has been a global concern due to their environmental impact and effects on human and animal health. These compounds include pharmaceuticals and personal care products, pesticides, fire retardants, hormones, and plasticizers, among others. These contaminants are not completely removed during water and wastewater conventional treatment. Thus, alternative processes are necessary to face this issue. In this context, nanotechnology represents a promising strategy for the remediation of emerging contaminants. Nanostructured materials have highlighted properties, such as adsorption capacity and porosity, chemical stability, reactivity, mobility, and antimicrobial activity. The diversity of nanomaterials and the possibility of combining them contribute to their application in contaminant mitigation. Furthermore, they can be used in different removal techniques such as adsorption, and membrane filtration. Thus, this review article provides an overview and advances in the production and application of nanofiltration membranes and adsorbent nanomaterials for the treatment of effluents containing emerging pollutants.

Recent Advances in Advanced Oxidation Processes for Degrading Pharmaceuticals in Wastewater—A Review

“…In general, there are various methods of removing pharmaceuticals from water systems, and most of them are based on biological, chemical, and physical approaches. Among the promising methods, adsorption [14][15][16], nanofiltration and nanoadsorption [17,18], membrane bioreactors [19,20], biological degradation [21,22], and advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) [23,24] have been explored and demonstrated to be successful in the removal of pharmaceuticals from aqueous solutions. Considering the respective advantages and disadvantages of each method, adsorption, biological degradation, and AOPs have attracted great attention [25].…”