Review and prospect of emerging contaminants in waste – Key issues and challenges linked to their presence in waste treatment schemes: General aspects and focus on nanoparticles

Photochemical Degradation of Organic Xenobiotics in Natural Waters

“…Kümmerer [8] defined emerging micropollutants as unregulated compounds or those with limited regulation which are present in the environment at low range (μg/l and below), irrespective of their chemical structure, and which thus require monitoring. Marcoux et al [9] summarised emerging micropollutants as newly detected substances in the environment or those already identified as risky and the use of which in manufactured items is prohibited, or substances already known but the recent use of which in products may cause problems during their future treatment as waste. According to the US Geological Society [10], emerging contaminants are any synthetic or naturally occurring chemical or any microorganism or metabolite that is not commonly monitored in the environment but has the potential to Table 1.…”

“…The sequence of reactions leading to the formation of reactive oxygen species (hydroxyl radicals and superoxide radicals) is represented in Eqs. (6)- (9).…”

Current limitations and challenges in nanowaste detection, characterisation and monitoring

“…In terms of waste management, Boldrin et al (2014) as well as Marcoux et al (2013) state that nanowaste can only be generated in the presence of ENMs, when unused ENMs or contaminated items are directly disposed of during production processes or when ENM containing products reach their end-of-life. Currently, very little is known about the transfer of ENMs from solid waste matrices to the liquid phase like in landfill leachates (Reinhart et al, 2010), during incineration processes (Bouillard et al, 2013;Price et al, 2014), or during recycling processes where ENMs can become airborne.…”

“…The database of NANOWERK (2015) catalogues more than 2600 different types of commercial ENMs indicating that there is already a wide range of uses of ENMs in the processing industry (e.g. as additives or catalysts) and in consumer products -various applications are summarised in detail in recent publications (e.g., EC, 2012;Marcoux et al, 2013;Yang and Westerhoff, 2014). Ultimately, products containing such nanomaterials reach their end-of-life and the majority of ENMs will therefore end up and may subsequently accumulate in waste streams (Caballero-Guzman et al, 2015;Gottschalk et al, 2013;Keller and Lazareva, 2013;Mueller and Nowack, 2008;Sun et al, 2014).…”

Silver, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide nanoparticle ecotoxicity to bioluminescent Pseudomonas putida in laboratory medium and artificial wastewater

“…Therefore, although NPs are described as emerging contaminants given their widespread use and known to end up in the environment (e.g. in wastewaters and in soils due to sludge applications) (Eduok et al, 2013;Marcoux et al, 2013), reproducible approaches with relevant GMB suitable for testing in more relevant environmental matrices are scarce.…”