Plasma-assisted removal of emerging genotoxic contaminants from wastewater

Increasing global economic development is accelerating pressure on global ecosystems. A large number of various contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) have been detected in water systems. Such contaminants are extremely difficult to remove and it was demonstrated that conventional wastewater treatment methods have limited removal efficiency, so majority of them end up in the environment in concentrations, posing a risk to the safety of the ecosystems and human life, putting an enormous burden to environmental scientist to develop a novel, more efficient removal methods. Cold Atmospheric pressure Plasma (CAP) has recently emerged as an effective advanced oxidation process (AOP) for water treatment. CAP combines beneficial characteristics of several AOP technologies, capable of creating an abundance of highly oxidizing chemical species. Despite promising initial results showing high removal efficiency of selected CECs from water, the underpinning mechanisms governing the CAP interaction with CECs degradation remain elusive due to the immense complexity of the situation. Without this vital fundamental information, CAP technology will not be accepted by industrial users and its true potential will never be realised. To address this complex and multifaceted challenge, this project will apply state of the art diagnostic and analytical techniques to uncover the primary degradation pathways and transformations products (TPs), resulting from CAP-CECs interactions. Finally, to ensure the safety of the process, the (geno)toxicity of parent molecules and plasma generated TPs will be assessed via DNA damage assays and toxicogenomic analyses by gene expression profiling. No such information is currently available hence there exists an exciting opportunity to uncover new science with true global impact and ultimately demonstrating that CAP is safe, effective and reliable removal tool in the fight against wastewater pollution.