Water pollution occurs when toxic pollutants of varying kinds (organic, inorganic, radioactive and so on) are directly or indirectly discharged into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove such potential pollutants. Today's sources of these potential pollutants, which cause high deterioration of freshwater quality, are city sewage and industrial waste discharge, human agricultural practices, industrial waste disposal practices, mining activities, civil and structural work activities and obviously natural contamination with climate change. When our water is polluted, it is not only devastating to the environment but also to human health. Therefore, development of water and wastewater treatment processes to alleviate water pollution has been a challenging and demanding task for engineers, scientists and researchers. Perhaps this is even more challenging for underdeveloped and developing countries, where water and wastewater treatment facilities, knowledge and infrastructure are limited. Water and wastewater treatment processes are broad and often multidisciplinary in nature, comprising a mixture of research areas including physical, chemical and biological methods to remove or transform various potential pollutants. This is in hopes to achieve acceptable water quality and satisfy governmental and environmental protection agencies' laws and regulations. With these objectives, this book has been written in order to provide various research results and compilation and up-to-date development on the current states of knowledge and techniques in the broad field of water and wastewater treatment processes. Basically, this book will give a comprehensive understanding and advancement and application of various physical, chemical and biological treatment methods in the reduction of potential pollutants (inorganics/organics) from water and wastewater. There are a total 18 book chapters contributed by large number of expert authors around the world, covering the following main research areas: Physical, chemical and biological water treatment processes such as adsorption, biosorption, coagulation/flocculation, electrocoagulation, denitration, membrane filtration/separation, photo-catalytic reduction, advanced oxidation, nutrients removal by struvite crystallisation and nanotechnology; Physical, chemical and biological methods for municipal wastewater and industrial wastewater treatment plants such as primary-secondary sludge treatments, anaerobic digestions, aerobic treatment, activated sludge processes, dewaterability by flocculants, pre-treatments of sludge and rheology of sludge in wastewater treatment; Various operational units/equipment and process control of wastewater treatment plant.

Applications of New Concepts of Physical-Chemical Wastewater Treatment deals with novel concepts of physical-chemical wastewater treatment, with particular reference to their engineering applications. Topics covered range from ultrahigh rate filtration of municipal wastewater to the applicability of carbon adsorption in the treatment of petrochemical wastewaters, along with regeneration of activated carbon and dewatering of physical-chemical sludges. Comprised of 31 chapters, this volume begins with a discussion on the use of physical-chemical methods for the treatment of municipal wastes and for direct wastewater treatment. The following chapters focus on the interrelationships between biological treatment and physicochemical treatment; some problems associated with the treatment of sewage by non-biological processes; treatment of wastes generated by metal finishing and engineering industries; and the principles and practice of granular carbon reactivation. The precipitation of calcium phosphate in wastewaters is also considered, together with the use of surface stirrers for ammonia desorption from ponds. This book will be a valuable resource for chemists, engineers, government officials, and environmental policymakers.

The book on Physico-Chemical Treatment of Wastewater and Resource Recovery provides an efficient and low-cost solution for remediation of wastewater. This book focuses on physico-chemical treatment via advanced oxidation process, adsorption, its management and recovery of valuable chemicals. It discusses treatment and recovery process for the range of pollutants including BTX, PCB, PCDDs, proteins, phenols, antibiotics, complex organic compounds and metals. The occurrence of persistent pollutants poses deleterious effects on human and environmental health. Simple solutions for recovery of valuable chemicals and water during physico-chemical treatment of wastewater are discussed extensively. This book provides necessary knowledge and experimental studies on emerging physico-chemical processes for reducing water pollution and resource recovery.