Advanced technologies for the treatment of pesticides

Abstract

The usage of pesticides is increasing all over the world for crop protection and yield, protection of food materials and prevention of various diseases. The most commonly used pesticides are herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and bactericides. Due to their enormous usage, pesticides enter into the water ecosystem through leaching and runoff. Pesticides, which are also termed as emerging contaminants, can be found at ppm/ppb levels in ground or surface water. These emerging contaminants are creating a toxic hazard to the aqueous environment. Several mitigation techniques and advance technologies have come into force to control and treat these harmful emerging contaminants. Mitigation at the emerging source through process and equipment modification is one such strategy. Once these pesticides enter into water bodies and create environmental pollution and degradation, treatment technologies such as biological, chemical, physical, and physicochemical processes need to be employed as treatments. Commonly used treatment technologies involve adsorption, membrane filtration, bio filtration, advanced oxidation processes, etc. This review deals with the technologies and the advances in the treatment of pesticides from aqueous medium. The development and implementation of each technology with its advantages and disadvantages are discussed.