Motivation

Recent regulatory pressure in the EU requires the monitoring of emerging contaminants (ECs) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and anticipates the implementation of quaternary treatment processes under EU Directive 2024/3019, known as TARU. This has a significant impact on the textile and cosmetics industries, which generate large amounts of PFAS, surfactants and microplastics in their industrial wastewater, and which compete and interfere with both analytical detection and treatment processes. These compounds, addressed in the project, have a negative impact on human health and ecosystems and may ultimately be released into the environment due to the limited removal efficiency of both urban and industrial wastewater treatment plants. Several regulatory instruments, such as municipal ordinances in the Valencian Region, are already preparing for the implementation of this directive and have limited the concentration of surfactants in discharges to 6 mg/L, due to the operational problems they cause in WWTPs. These threshold values, which are significantly higher than those typically reported by industries such as textiles, cosmetics or detergents, highlight the need to address the treatment of emerging contaminants at source. This requires proposing prevention and removal strategies directly within industrial facilities, thereby preventing their discharge into wastewater treatment plants.