Mikrozanieczyszczenia w środowisku – Występowanie, interakcje, usuwanie

The article presents a broad range of issues concerning micropollutants in the natural and anthropogenic environment. The issues discussed are: the source and occurrence of micropollutants in the environment (water, soil and air), their environmental fate, ecotoxicity, measures to reduce the produced amount of micropollutants, transformation pathways and transformation products in the environment, treatment of wastewater containg micropollutants, research projects dedicated to the discussed issues and a review of selected solutions on an industrial scale. Removal of micropollutants is currently a pressing problem of environmental engineering. Knowledge of the presence of these pollutants in the environment is already quite advanced, with partial understandingof their fate in waste and wastewater treatment processes. Also, significant progress has been made in the understanding of the applicability of various treatment methods and their effectiveness in the removal of micropollutants from waste streams. Development of wastewater treatment technology, and to a lesser extent, waste management, has already led to elimination or reduction of the risk posed by the significant amounts of pollution, but currently the most pressing issue is the presence of micropollutants whose effect on natural environment and humanrequires further studies. There is no single transformation pathway of micropollutants, due to the fact that they are diverse in terms of chemical structure, subsequently have various physico-chemical properties, and affect the organisms present in the environment in various manner. Anthropogenic micropollutants usually are not completely degraded biologically, and their transformation is associated with the phenomenon of co-metabolism and cooperation of certain consortia of microorganisms. The search for new, more effective, methods for removing micropollutants from the environment should always be accompanied by evaluation of the toxicity of the resulting products. Transformation products of certain micropollutants were more toxic to indicator organisms than the parent compounds. The main source of micropollutants entering the water environment in developed countries (in the case of sewered areas) are municipal wastewater treatment plants. For this reason, the article discussed in detail the issue of the removal of micropollutants from municipal wastewaterin the secondary and tertiary (post-treatment)treatment steps. The article presents the results for the abatement of selected micropollutants (benzotriazole, mecoprop, diclofenac, sulfamethoxazole and karbamazpina) in 11 types of wastewater treatment based on both biological processes (constructed wetlands, stabilization ponds and activated sludge systems) and physicochemical methods (coagulation, sorption on activated carbon, advanced oxidation, photolysis and ozonolysis), and the area requirements (due to the process rate) and the energy consumption (the two factors are the basis for the distinction between the intensive and extensive technologies). The issues presented in the article the basis for new research projects, allowing accelerating the moment in which the waste water treatment plants, will have a quaternary treatment step, which will significantly reduce of the risks of the presence of priority substances in the treated wastewatereven at very low concentrations (which may cause long-time effects).