Preface

Chapter 7 **Endocrine Disrupting Compounds – Problems and**

Chapter 8 **The Relevance of ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy in Semiconductor**

Mazerska and Jacek Namieśnik

Błażej Kudłak, Natalia Szczepańska, Katarzyna Owczarek, Zofia

Mohamed Faycal Atitar, Hamza Belhadj, Ralf Dillert and Detlef W.

**Challenges 169**

**VI** Contents

**Photocatalysis 203**

Bahnemann

In 2008, Farré and collaborators introduced the concept of **Emerging Pollutants** as those compounds that are not currently covered by existing water-quality regulations and which may be candidates for future regulation, depending on their toxicity, potential health effects, occurrence in various environmental matrices, and public perception, because they repre‐ sent a potential threat to environmental ecosystems and human health and safety.

The concept of emerging pollutants primarily refers to those contaminants for which no reg‐ ulations currently require monitoring or public reporting of their presence in our water sup‐ ply or wastewater discharges. Many congeners described as emerging pollutants are made up of a wide variety of chemicals like pharmaceuticals and household chemicals, which may enter the environment through human and animal urine and feces, the flushing of unused medications, household uses, or bathing and may result in concentrations as low as nano‐ grams per liter to as high as micrograms per liter. Many contaminants are increasingly de‐ tected due to improvements in detection methods, an important aspect for advancing the overall understanding of emerging pollutants. It is worth mentioning that the release of pharmaceuticals from manufacturing facilities is regulated in most developed countries and is therefore not a major contributor of these constituents to the environment, though this is not the case over the majority of our planet.

The most important sources of environmentally relevant emerging pollutants are, as expect‐ ed, primarily wastewater treatment plant effluents and, secondarily, terrestrial runoffs, e.g., from roofs, pavements, roads, and agricultural land, including atmospheric deposition, among others. Furthermore, it has been observed that one of the major characteristics of some types of these contaminants is that they do not need to be persistent in the environ‐ ment to exert negative effects. It is well known, at least for the majority of them, that the high transformation/removal rates they possess are compensated by their continuous intro‐ duction into the environment. Accordingly, for most emerging pollutants, risk assessment and ecotoxicological data are still an open question. It is therefore difficult to predict which jeopardizing health effects may be exerted not only for humans but also for other terrestrial and aquatic organisms and the ecosystems where those organisms are immersed.

Emerging pollutants reach our environment through various anthropogenic sources and ac‐ tivities, and are distributed throughout different environmental matrices. It is well known that these contaminants are commonly derived from municipal, agricultural, and industrial wastewater sources. These recently recognized contaminants represent a shift in traditional thinking, since many of them are produced by industries and then dispersed to the environ‐ ment through domestic, commercial, and industrial applications. During the last decades, great advances have been achieved not only in the detection but also the analysis of trace

pollutants worldwide. However, due to the continued development of new and more re‐ fined and specific methodologies, a wide array of previously undetected pollutants with emerging environmental concern require determination and quantification in various envi‐ ronmental components as well as in different biological matrices and different compart‐ ments of living exposed organisms.

An increasing number of solid field studies designed to provide basic scientific information concerning the occurrence and potential transport of contaminants in the environment are being continuously conducted worldwide to identify which contaminants enter the environ‐ ment, at what concentrations, and in what combinations. Research has been focused on con‐ taminants of priority and the most well-known pollutants worldwide, such as pesticides, toxic metals, and radionuclides, among others, though fortunately, in recent years the atten‐ tion of the scientific community has shifted to emerging contaminants. Therefore, a major challenge for our scientific community nowadays is to identify and further characterize those chemicals that will potentially become dangerous to the environment in the near fu‐ ture.

Caution should be taken with emerging pollutants. These xenobiotics may be mobile and persistent in air, water, soil, sediments, and a large battery of ecological receptors, even at very low concentrations. Important data on their fate and behavior in the environment as well as on threats to both ecological and human health are documented; however, robust and comprehensive analyses are still lacking. Furthermore, the ecotoxicological significance of a large number of emerging pollutants, including those so-called micropollutants, re‐ mains largely unknown since convincing and/or satisfactory data to determine their risk of‐ ten do not exist, or that risk has been only partially suggested or demonstrated.

Our awareness and scientific understanding of the potential effects and risk of emerging pollutants is improving. Research is being documented with increasing frequency, showing that many chemical and microbial constituents that have not historically been considered as contaminants are present in the environment on a worldwide scale. This book will provide the latest findings on those pollutants and their possible effects, not only on our environ‐ ment but also on living organisms, including human beings. Finally, we hope this book will answer them or at least provide some clues to the inherent potential risk of the presence of these types of contaminants in our environment.

#### **Marcelo L. Larramendy Ph.D. and Sonia Soloneski Ph.D.**

School of Natural Sciences and Museum National University of La Plata La Plata, Argentina **Emerging Pollutants in the Environment - Current and Further Implications**

pollutants worldwide. However, due to the continued development of new and more re‐ fined and specific methodologies, a wide array of previously undetected pollutants with emerging environmental concern require determination and quantification in various envi‐ ronmental components as well as in different biological matrices and different compart‐

An increasing number of solid field studies designed to provide basic scientific information concerning the occurrence and potential transport of contaminants in the environment are being continuously conducted worldwide to identify which contaminants enter the environ‐ ment, at what concentrations, and in what combinations. Research has been focused on con‐ taminants of priority and the most well-known pollutants worldwide, such as pesticides, toxic metals, and radionuclides, among others, though fortunately, in recent years the atten‐ tion of the scientific community has shifted to emerging contaminants. Therefore, a major challenge for our scientific community nowadays is to identify and further characterize those chemicals that will potentially become dangerous to the environment in the near fu‐

Caution should be taken with emerging pollutants. These xenobiotics may be mobile and persistent in air, water, soil, sediments, and a large battery of ecological receptors, even at very low concentrations. Important data on their fate and behavior in the environment as well as on threats to both ecological and human health are documented; however, robust and comprehensive analyses are still lacking. Furthermore, the ecotoxicological significance of a large number of emerging pollutants, including those so-called micropollutants, re‐ mains largely unknown since convincing and/or satisfactory data to determine their risk of‐

Our awareness and scientific understanding of the potential effects and risk of emerging pollutants is improving. Research is being documented with increasing frequency, showing that many chemical and microbial constituents that have not historically been considered as contaminants are present in the environment on a worldwide scale. This book will provide the latest findings on those pollutants and their possible effects, not only on our environ‐ ment but also on living organisms, including human beings. Finally, we hope this book will answer them or at least provide some clues to the inherent potential risk of the presence of

**Marcelo L. Larramendy Ph.D. and Sonia Soloneski Ph.D.**

School of Natural Sciences and Museum

National University of La Plata

La Plata, Argentina

ten do not exist, or that risk has been only partially suggested or demonstrated.

these types of contaminants in our environment.

ments of living exposed organisms.

ture.

VIII Preface
