How to meet the challenges of emerging contaminants

Emerging contaminants are synthetic or naturally occurring substances newly identified as posing risks to human health or having the potential to cause ecological damage if released into the environment.

In many cases, the biological effects of these contaminants have not been fully studied, and as a result, they haven’t been tightly controlled. However, regulations are imminent and wastewater treatment plants will soon have to do more to remove emerging contaminants.

However, because these substances can be present at very low concentrations in influent – and have such a broad range of chemical structures – routine monitoring for emerging contaminants is often impractical.

Instead, wastewater treatment plants will have to understand how each class of emerging contaminant can be most efficiently removed – for example, by absorption and filtration or by chemical degradation. With this knowledge, wastewater treatment plants can adapt their processes so they use the right technologies at the right time.

In our white paper, water technology experts Laura Piai, Sigrid Scherrenberg, Arnoud de Wilt, Marco Kerstholt, and Paul Roeleveld discuss the best treatments to remove three important classes of emerging contaminants: micropollutants, PFAS, and microplastics.

In the white paper, you’ll find out:

• Why meeting the challenge of emerging contaminants is so important
• How to classify different contaminants such as micropollutants and PFAS
• Which treatment technologies work best to remove each class
• Where in the treatment process each technology should be used