Abstract:
Emerging contaminants are the chemicals that have been detected in global drinking water supplies at trace levels and for which the risk to human health is not yet known. They include pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, herbicides and endocrine disrupting compounds. These material include toxic metals, Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and pesticides. Urbanization, industrialization and changing life style further aggravates the problem of groundwater pollution. Indiscriminate use of fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides in agricultural field also increase groundwater contamination. Analysis of emerging contaminants requires high level advanced intrumentations viz; ICP-MS, GC-MS/MS, FTIR etc. In the present paper, the sources of emerging contaminants viz; pharmaceuticals, personal care products, petroleum products (BETEX, MTBE etc.), pesticides, herbicides and their chemical behaviour are discussed in details. Besides this, different techniques available for remediation of emerging pollutants from groundwater have also been discussed. Conventional pump-and-treat is the groundwater remediation technology most frequently used in the past. However, due to excessive costs and the non-reliability of remediation with pump-and-treat systems, the newer technologies, particularly air sparging with WE and subsequent treatment, now dominate. The case studies of air sparging demonstrate its capability of reducing contaminant concentrations in large proportions in a short span of time.
