A Review of Emerging Environmental Contaminants of Global Concern
Abstract
Emerging contaminants (ECs) represent a broad category of chemicals detected in the environment due to various anthropogenic activities, including everyday domestic, agricultural, and industrial processes. This article highlights major emerging contaminants, their sources, ecological and health effects, and analytical techniques for detecting and quantifying them in the environment. While the presence of these substances in the environment is not a recent revelation, they have recently gained increased attention due to the advancements in more sensitive analytical techniques. These techniques have uncovered the existence of these pollutants in the air, soil, and water, often at extraordinarily low concentrations. Gas chromatography and high-resolution liquid chromatography techniques are used to quantify ECs in samples at parts per million and parts per billion levels respectively. In comparison to rural surroundings, emerging pollutants are typically found in higher concentrations in urban and industrial settings. Exposure to these substances has been associated with several health problems, such as hormonal imbalances, oxidative damage, digestion problems, altered dynamics of the gut microbial community, irregularities in fatty acid metabolism, and molecular damage among others. ECs pose a threat to aquatic life, rendering drinking water unsafe when permissible limits are exceeded. The large surface area to volume ratio of microplastics allows toxic substances to be…
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