Opinion paper about organic trace pollutants in wastewater: Toxicity assessment in a European perspective

Abstract

This opinion paper focuses on the role of eco-toxicological tools in the assessment of possible impacts of emerging contaminants on the aquatic ecosystem, hence, on human health. Indeed, organic trace pollutants present in raw and treated wastewater are the pivot targets: a multidisciplinary approach allows defining the basic principles for managing this issue, from setting a proper monitoring campaign up to evaluating the optimal process treatment. Giving hints on trace pollutants fate and behaviour, attention is focused on the choice of the bioassay(s), by analysing the meaning of possible biological answers. Data interpretation and exploitation are detailed with the final goal of providing criteria in order to be able to select the best targeted treatment options.The manuscript deals with conventional and innovative analytical approaches for assessing toxicity, by reviewing laboratory and field assays; illustrative real scale and laboratory applications integrate and exemplify the proposed approach.

Simultaneous removal of Cd, Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn from synthetic solutions on a hemp‐based felt. III. Real discharge waters

“…In addition to monitoring and treating chemical substances in DWs, there is also an increasing interest in Europe on the ecotoxicological effects that may be caused by these waters in aquatic ecosystems . Indeed, most legislation linked to the environment points out the complementarity of combined chemical and biological monitoring approaches.…”

Integrated membrane bioreactors modelling: A review on new comprehensive modelling framework

“…Secondly, the need of taking into account emerging contaminants of environmental concern (both in the sludge and the effluent wastewater). This topic indeed hides another issue related to the growing consciousness that chemical characterisation may fail in giving the real picture of effluent properties, as measuring thousands of compounds and predicting the effect of their mixture is unfeasible (Pedrazzani et al, 2019a). This led to the development of bioassays for a more suitable characterisation (Escher and Leusch, 2011;Gonzalez-Gil et al, 2016;Papa et al, 2016a;Pedrazzani et al, 2020).…”

Antimicrobial Activity of Nanomaterials: From Selection to Application

“…Thus, the therapeutic index becomes a fundamental safety factor in the evaluation of nanomaterials and can be correlated using all toxicity parameters recommended by the OECD (Gao and Lowry 2018;Vitorino 2018;Zhu et al 2019). Also, regarding environmental toxicity, an index should be obtained that determines the impact of nanomaterials on ecosystems; in which case the antimicrobial activity must be correlated with those obtained in battery of aquatic tests, as well as toxicity in plants (Bondarenko et al 2016;Galdiero et al 2016;Pedrazzani et al 2019). Finally, this issue acquires fundamental importance in view of the great possibilities and challenges that nanotechnology imposes on us as a new tool for treatment, control, and diagnosis of diseases.…”