Biological Treatment of Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Wastewater: A Review

Contaminants of emerging concerns (CECs) persist in the environment and are present in the air, water, and soil. They include various industrial, chemical, pharmaceutical, and personal care products (PCPs) and metallic elements, pesticides, and endocrine disruptors. CECs can cause adverse ecological and health impacts by passing into plants and human foods via different routes. Recently, different treatment processes have been investigated for the remediation of CECs that are present in wastewater, and a current review emphasized different biological treatments for the removal of a wide range of CECs. Based on these studies, endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) can be removed by a membrane bioreactor (MBR) and pharmaceuticals and pesticides can be effectively removed by biological activated carbon (BAC). Microalgae-based treatment can remove some types of CECs, to some extent, and the activated sludge process (ASP) and trickling filters (TFs) can remove an average amount of CECs from wastewater. Due to the deficiencies of these treatment processes when removing CECs in wastewater, various hybrid treatment systems have been explored. This study will focus on the different conventional and novel biological treatment processes for the removal of different CECs.