At the onset of 21st century, the pollution of surface and groundwater by toxic metals continues to represent a challenge for the authorities responsible for environmental protection. The uncontrolled rejection of metals in aquatic ecosystems such as Ag, As, Be, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Sb, Tl and Zn, constitute a serious threat to human and animal health. Several methods of treatment of waters polluted by metals have been proposed during the last several decades. However, the technique of precipitation of metals remains the most favorable option on an industrial scale due to reasons of cost-effectiveness, performance, and simplicity. The present review presents current knowledge on various technical alternatives for precipitation of metals. The discussion relates to the individual characteristics of the metal contaminants, as well as their behavior compared to various techniques of precipitation.

In the recent years, endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) has received increasing attention due to their significant toxic effects on human beings and wildlife by affecting their endocrine systems. As an important group of emerging pollutant, EDCs have been detected in various aquatic environments, including surface waters, groundwater, wastewater, runoff, and landfill leachates. Their removal from water resources has also been an emerging concern considering growing population as well as reducing access to fresh water resources. EDC removal from wastewaters is highly dependent on physicochemical properties of the given EDCs present in each wastewater types as well as various aquatic environments. Due to chemical, physical and physicochemical diversities in these parameters, variety of technologies consisting of physical, biological, electrochemical, and chemical processes have been developed for their removal. This review highlights that the effectiveness of EDC removal is highly dependent of selecting the appropriate technology; which decision is made upon a full wastewater chemical characterization. This review aims to provide a comprehensive perspective about all the current technologies used for EDCs removal from various aquatic matrices along with rising challenges such as the antimicrobial resistance gene transfer during EDC treatment.