Chapter 6Outlook

Giusy Lofrano

Significant progress has been made in the recent decades in recognising andunderstanding the issues in sustainability. The rate of population growth, the levelof economic development, often equated with quality of life, and environmentalprotection have long been recognised challenges to mutually create a sustainablefuture. Historical evidences proved that an increasing human population has put anincreasing demand on natural resources used for consumption and waste man-agement. The challenge of green engineering decouples the historical relationshipof population growth and environmental degradation on the path towards sus-tainability that means an improved quality of life.

Among several green technologies applied to wastewater treatment foremerging compounds removal, this book focuses on natural (adsorption andconstructed wetlands) and advanced solar-based treatments because their charac-teristics make them inherently green.

Many studies of non-conventional treatments are available in the literature;nevertheless, they are often limited to laboratory scale. Indeed, the cost estimationof adsorption processes utilising low-cost adsorbents is not strictly right and pilot-plant studies should also be carried out to check their feasibility on commercialscale.

Interesting results on removal of organic micropollutants, particularly Phar-maceutical and Personal Care Products (PPCPs), came out from constructedwetlands. Their application to small communities or as tertiary treatments dealingwith a small, diverted fraction of conventional effluents from Wastewater Treat-ment Plants (WWTP) appears quite attractive both due to the limited energy

G. Lofrano (&)Department of Civil Engineering, University of Salerno,via ponte don Melillo, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italye-mail: glofrano@unisa.it

G. Lofrano (ed.), Emerging Compounds Removal from Wastewater,SpringerBriefs in Green Chemistry for Sustainability,DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-3916-1_6, � Lofrano 2012

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required and to the relatively low maintenance costs, which contribute to make thistechnology a unique green technology.

From the studies provided in this book it can be seen that solar-advancedoxidation processes are effective treatment methods for the removal of tracepollutants. However, there are a number of issues to be solved pertaining thesetreatment methods, involving the identification of the oxidation by-products aswell as intermediates, the evaluation of biodegradability, and potential estrogenicactivity of these compounds. Furthermore, as the process costs may be consideredthe main obstacle to their commercial application, several promising cost-cuttingapproaches have been proposed, such as integration of Advanced OxidationProcesses AOPs as a part of a treatment train.

Even more in the near future, green chemistry should focus on the developmentof economically feasible conversion of solar energy into chemical energy andimprovement in the conversion of solar energy to electric power.

Testing sustainability requires to think long and hard. It is the time to begin.

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