Methodologies for the Detection and Remediation of Organic Micropollutants in Terrestrial Ecosystems

At present, most of the terrestrial ecosystems are highly contaminated, due to continuous discharge of a diverse range of organic micropollutants (OMPs) from different sources in the environment without adequate treatment. Considering the detrimental impacts of OMPs on both the environment and human health, treatment is imperative before discharge. To treat the continual emissions of OMPs (including personal care products, pesticides, heavy metals, dyes and pharmaceutical active compounds), various methods such as adsorption, coagulation, flocculation, ozonation, electro-oxidation and electro-coagulation were continually proposed and implemented. So far various conventional methods for OMP degradation have been studied extensively, but failed due to its expensive and inefficient nature. To overcome the drawbacks associated with these existing methods, these can be replaced by environmentally safer and cost-effective methods. Biological treatment methods are capable of efficiently removing OMPs even at lower and higher concentrations in an environmentally safer and cost-effective manner. Numerous microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, algae and the enzymes released from these microorganisms, have recently been used in biological methods for the remediation of OMPs. To give significant insight into the technology used for the removal of OMPs, this chapter comprehensively reviewed the current removal methods, mechanisms and comparisons of methods with their advantages and disadvantages as well as future outlooks and recommendations.