Detection, Toxicity assessment, Removal, and Transformation Pathways of Contaminant Including Recovery of Valuable Substrates
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Green Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 157
Special Issue Editors
Interests: water and wastewater technology; biological processes; advanced oxidation processes (AOPs); deammonification; nitrogen removal in a side stream; circular economy in a wastewater treatment plant; recovery of raw materials from wastewater and sludge; energy self-sufficiency of WWTPs; innovative technologies for the treatment of municipal and industrial wastewater; technologies and devices reducing the nuisance of WWTPs
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: adsorption; filtration; micropollutants removal; membrane technology; nanoparticles; carbon nanotubes; membrane modification; adsorbents’ preparation; fouling; water treatment; wastewater treatment; activated carbon
Interests: membrane processes; water recovery and reuse; recycling; micropollutants; surfactants; separation; adsorption; circular economy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Emerging pollutants including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, industrial chemicals, heavy metals, microplastics, and novel persistent organic compounds are increasingly detected in diverse environmental matrices, including surface water, groundwater, soil, and air. Some of them are also detected in animal and human tissues and fluids. Advances in analytics have greatly improved our ability to identify traces of these contaminants, yet substantial knowledge gaps remain in understanding their environmental fate, long-term ecotoxicological impacts, and human health risks. This increase in awareness of their danger enforces their removal from different environmental matrices. These challenges are further emphasized by recent regulatory developments, including the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (EU 2024/3019), which introduce stricter requirements for monitoring, controlling, and reducing emissions of priority and emerging pollutants. A critical challenge lies in the limited effectiveness of conventional wastewater and drinking water treatment technologies, which were not originally designed to remove micropollutants. As a result, many emerging contaminants pass through treatment systems and are continuously released into receiving water bodies. Sludge application, water reuse practices, and diffuse emissions further facilitate the spread of these substances across environmental compartments. Therefore, the developments of innovative water and wastewater treatment techniques coupled with the idea of circular economy and raw materials recovery are desirable.
We invite original research articles and reviews on sensitive and selective detection methodologies, toxicity assessments, and mechanistic insights into environmental transformation processes. Contributions that explore sustainable and scalable removal technologies, modeling of pollutant behavior, and recovery techniques of critical raw materials are particularly encouraged.
Prof. Dr. Krzysztof Barbusiński
Dr. Gabriela Kamińska
Guest Editors
Dr. Aleksandra Klimonda
Guest Editor Assistant
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 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.
Keywords
- emergining micropollutants
- environmental monitoring
- chromatopgraphy
- AOPs
- removal techniques
- environmental fate
- ecotoxoxity
- accumulation
- toxicity
- transformation pathways
- recovery of valuable substrates
- circular economy
- closed-loop treatment systems
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