Waste Water: Treatment technologies and recent analytical developments

VARIOS AUTORES

InTech. Open Access Publisher.

Año: 2013 p. 204

980-953-307-598-8

The generation of wastes as a result of human activities has been continuously speeding up since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Waste water is very often discharged to freshwaters and results in changing ecological performance and biological diversity of these systems. Consequently, the environmental impact of foreign chemicals on water ecosystems and the associated long-term effects are of major international concern. This makes both waste water treatment and water quality monitoring very important issues. The main sources of wastewater can be classified as municipal, industrial and agricultural. Depending on the nature of the waste water, effluents may have high contents of harmful organic compounds, heavy metals and hazardous biological materials. Heavy metals are released during mining and mineral processing as well as from several industrial wastewater streams. On the other hand, large quantities of organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls, organochlorine pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans have been released to the environment especially for more than 50 years. Furthermore, in the last 15 years new pollutants, namely pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and endocrine disrupting chemicals, have been found in natural waters and are now viewed as emerging contaminants. Finally, raw sewage can carry a number of pathogens including bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. The book offers an interdisciplinary collection of topics concerning waste water treatment technologies and the evaluation of waste water impact on natural environments. The book is divided into two sections: the chapters grouped in the first section are mainly concerned with management and remediation technologies, while the chapters grouped in the second section are mainly focused on analytical techniques and the evaluation of environmental impact. The first section covers basic knowledge concerning the most frequently used waste water treatment technologies. The suitability of different techniques according to the nature of the effluent to be treated is discussed taking into account advantages and drawbacks. The chapters grouped in the second section of the book cover several aspects of modern techniques for the analysis of trace pollutants. Monitoring of water quality is required to assess the effects of pollution sources on aquatic ecosystems. Sensitive and selective techniques, often necessary for the evaluation of the effects of waste water streams on natural waters, are comprehensive overviewed.