The Threat of Emerging Pollutants to Aquatic Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Water shortage and scarcity are issues of global concern. Water pollution caused by emerging pollutants further aggravates the problem, rendering an already scarce resource unfit for human consumption. On the other hand, the discovery of new and emerging pollutants (i.e., microplastics (MPs), nanoplastics (NPs), and poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), etc.) is increasing threats to the survival of conventional wastewater treatment technologies (WWTs) because existing conventional WWT methods and infrastructure are not designed to eliminate these emerging pollutants. Therefore, their inefficiencies call for modern methods/techniques to remove these emerging pollutants from water and wastewater. Regarding this, water quality experts are focusing on the development of innovative and environmentally friendly future technologies to handle this situation. Recently, there have been several physical, chemical, and biological technologies examined to remove these emerging pollutants from artificial and real wastewater; however, these proposed technologies have shown some limitations regarding specific pollutant removal efficiencies, vulnerability to environmental pollutants, higher costs and energy requirements, excessive sludge volume, toxicity issues, etc. In addition, the high installation and operational costs of advanced treatment technologies have shifted research interests to the development of economical and reliable technology for the management of these emerging pollutants. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to showcase recent innovations in the development of sustainable engineered and cutting-edge technologies to remove these emerging pollutants from water/wastewater and ecology by introducing novel remediation technologies and modifying the system’s design. This Special Issue will mainly consider novel research works and review articles focusing on (but not limited to) emerging pollutants, adsorption technologies, biological wastewater treatment, advanced oxidation treatment, bioremediation, photodegradation, adsorbent materials, catalytic materials, modeling and simulation, membrane-based materials, novel material fabrication and characterization, bioreactors, metal–organic frameworks and biochar-based materials, graphene and graphene oxide derivatives, carbon-derivative nanomaterials like graphitic carbon nitrides as well as carbon sponges/aerogels, etc. In addition, economic analyses of various development-stage technologies for removing pollutants are encouraged.

Dr. Imran Ali
Prof. Dr. Xiao Tan
Prof. Dr. Changsheng Peng
Guest Editors

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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Water 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 2600 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.

• emerging pollutants
• microplastics (MPs)
• nanoplastics (NPs)
• poly-and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs)
• water environment
• ecology
• treatment technologies
• adsorption
• bioremediation
• advance oxidation treatment
• photodegradation
• catalytic materials
• membrane-based materials
• material fabrication and characterization
• metal–organic frameworks
• biochar-based materials
• modeling and simulation
• economic analysis