Emerging contaminants – general aspects: sources, substances involved, and quantification

Abstract

This review reports a discussion involving sources, adverse effects, and quantification of emerging contaminants that have polluted the environment, such as chemical elements employed in medicine (antimony, barium, and gadolinium), microplastics in water bodies, in addition to pharmaceutical, illicit drugs, and their metabolites in wastewater and sewage sludge. It also addresses the pollution caused by emerging contaminants in urban areas, such as gas stations and hairdressing salons. The main analytical methods recommended for determining all these contaminants are briefly reported.

Keywords:

• Emergent contaminants
• antimony
• barium
• gadolinium
• gas station
• hair dyes
• illicit drugs
• microplastics

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

The Brazilian authors thank the fellowships and financial support from the Brazilian agencies Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) (Finance Code 001), and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia (FAPESB).