Mercury Water Pollution & Mitigation - Current Challenges and Trends

Dear Colleagues,

Water pollution with heavy metals is a serious worldwide ecological challenge. Especially toxic is mercury and its organic forms produced via microbial activity, which are bioaccumulate and biomagnify mercury concentration into the food chain. It has been reported that mercury compounds in general are more toxic than compounds of any other non-radioactive heavy elements.

Although natural sources contribute, such as volcanoes, the dominant share of mercury emissions comes from man-made sources. A prime example is the mercury amalgamation of gold, which is still in use in many poor regions of the world, endangering the health of the general population. This situation is developing into an environmental and human health crisis. As a response, in 2017, the Minamata Convention on Mercury was ratified by more than 50 parties to the treaty. By the time the treaty enters into force, new mercury mining activities will be banned and any mercury mines in operation must be closed within 15 years from that date.

Thus, the removal of mercury from water is a pressing environmental issue due to the adverse effects on humans and ecosystems. Research indicate that wastewater treatment facilities can remove Hg from wastewater quite effectively, but this only transfers the problem to sewage sludge, which is typically incinerated, and Hg is discharged to the atmosphere and from there to the water and soils. On the other hand, remediation of natural waters is a challenging engineering problem.

This Special Issue welcomes articles on these and related themes on mercury pollution of water, wastewater treatment and polluted water sites remediation.

Dr. Vassilis J. Inglezakis (Reader)
Guest Editor

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• mercury
• pollution
• water
• wastewater
• remediation