Environmental impact and source-controlled approaches for emerging micropollutants: Current status and future prospects

Abstract

Emerging micropollutants, originating from diverse sources, including pharmaceutical, pesticides, and industrial effluents, are a serious environmental concern. Their presence in natural water bodies has negative effects on ecosystems and human health. To address this issue, the importance of a source-controlled approach has grown, highlighting the use of advanced technologies such as oxidation processes, membrane filtration, and adsorption to prevent micropollutants from entering the environment. Therefore, this review provides a comprehensive overview of emerging micropollutants, their analytical detection methods, and their environmental impacts, with a focus on aquatic ecosystems, human health, and terrestrial environments. It also highlights the importance of using a source-controlled approach and provides insights into the benefits and drawbacks of this strategy. The primary micropollutants identified in this review were erythromycin, ibuprofen, and triclocarban, originating from the pharmaceutical industries for their use as antibiotics, analgesic, and antibacterial drugs. The primary analytical methods used for detection involved hybrid techniques that integrate chromatography with spectroscopy. Thus, this review emphasizes the source-controlled approach's benefits and drawbacks, focusing on emerging micropollutants, their detection, and impacts on ecosystems and health.