Xenobiotics as Emerging Environmental Contaminants

Dear Colleagues,

It has been decades since human beings first began to recognize the detrimental effects that anthropogenic chemicals (i.e., xenobiotics) exert on us and our ecosystem in the 1960s. In fact, the development of environmental science can basically be deemed as the history of humans combating xenobiotic relevant issues, which are exemplified by the early lessons learnt from eggshell thinning and the population decline of birds caused by metabolites of the notorious insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), as well as human neurological syndrome (Minamata disease) induced by methylmercury poisoning.

Despite our past implementation to regulate and eliminate traditional persistent organic pollutants (POPs), we are now increasingly exposed to hundreds of thousands of xenobiotics (> 350,000 in the global market), while enjoying their welfares as daily used commercial products. These massive chemical entities contribute to a huge xenobiotic “reservoir”, where emerging environmental contaminants (EECs) are continuously arising, threatening our society’s sustainable development and posing a great risk to the health of humans and the ecosystem. Though ambitious, the global goal set by the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) to “minimize significant adverse impacts of chemicals by 2020” is far from being achieved. Continuous efforts are urgently required to escort the sound management of synthetic chemicals via thorough environmental exposure evaluation and hazard identification.

To boost this step, this Special Issue themed “Xenobiotics as Emerging Environmental Contaminants” is designated to gather mini-reviews and research articles addressing issues/topics related with EECs, such as new POPs (e.g., perfluoroalkyl substances), endocrine-disrupting chemicals, nanomaterials, microplastics, highly hazardous pesticides, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, novel flame retardants, etc. The issues/topics include, but are not limited to, identifying EECs’ exposure (e.g., environmental occurrence, profile, chemicals in products and life cycle assessment), resolving environmental behaviors (e.g., environmental partitioning, transportation and transformations) and evaluating potential toxicological effects through high-throughput computational toxicological models/techniques (e.g., QSAR) or in vitro assays.

Dr. Zhiqiang Fu
Dr. Siyu Zhang
Dr. Xianhai Yang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.