A clear crystal sphere with colorful pills and a rainbow swirl on a dewy green leaf, blurred city buildings and holographic shapes in background.

Generate an image for the rationale or background of the study based on the following: Emerging contaminants (ECs), as defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, are unregulated synthetically produced or naturally occurring chemicals and compounds in the environment and of which effects are still not fully known. These contaminants may have been undetected in the environment for years not until the advancements in technology have occurred (Geissen et al., 2015). The most common classes of these compounds are pharmaceuticals, pesticides, disinfectants and disinfection by-products, wood preservatives, natural and synthetic hormones, and persistent organic pollutants (La Farre et al., 2008; Luo et al., 2018). For two decades, the occurrence, fate, transport, and removal of ECs in wastewaters were studied (Pham et al., 1997) due to the rising concern of their possible detrimental impact in the environment and human health. Pharmaceuticals are compounds primarily used in the treatment and prevention of diseases and other health conditions (Naeimi & Faghihian, 2018). They can persist in the environment for several years and become biologically active through accumulation (Rivera-Ultrilla et al., 2013) thus, posing ecological and human health threats that caused researchers to work on understanding more of these compounds in the recent years. Pharmaceuticals are excreted either metabolized or unmetabolized after consumption and are also present in urban, Mehr sehen