Organic Micropollutants in the Freshwater Ecosystem: Environmental Effects, Potential Treatments, and Limitations

Organic micropollutants (OMPs) are widely used the derivatives of pesticides, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, plasticizers, insulating foams, etc. which are widely used. A total of 53 micropollutants in all, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs such as sulfamethoxazole and ibuprofen), pesticides (like heptachlor and diazinon), and industrial chemicals (including perfluorooctanesulfonic acid and 4-nonylphenol), was found using metadata analysis. In a freshwater ecosystem, OMPs are introduced through biomedical waste, municipal waste, pharmaceutical waste, and fertilizers. The hazardous potential of OMPs is measured in terms of environmental persistence and mobility. OMPs are significant pollution agents that threaten human health and environmental matrices (air, water, soil, food, etc.). A variety of OMPs get adsorbed on nano-plastics and micro-plastics and get migrated to aquatic organisms where these pollutants desorb and get released into the digestive system of aquatic organisms. Long-term inputs of OMPs also cause bioaccumulation in aquatic systems and become an integral part of the food chain. In the last few decades, researchers have come up with various OMP removal and treatment techniques including fumigation, chemical-based oxidation, UV photolysis, membrane process, adsorption, advanced oxidation process (AOP), etc. These processes are again modified for maximum outputs. In AOPs (UV radiation oxidation) radical representatives (Cl, OH, O3) attacked micropollutants. The membrane process when applied with the reverse osmosis process is comparatively more effective. This chapter covers the detection and concentration of OMPs in a freshwater ecosystem and how these OMPs are transported to the freshwater ecosystem as well as their environmental impacts along with various treatment techniques.