Introduction to Conventional Wastewater Treatment Technologies: Limitations and Recent Advances

The rapid growth of the industries and population leads to increasing generation of industrial and municipal wastewater. This wastewater threatens directly or indirectly the human health and industrial processes. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a rapid, simple, eco-friendly, effective, and efficient method for eliminating pollutants from industrial and municipal wastewater. The wastewater treatment aims to remove pollutants including particles, organic/inorganic substances, and pathogenic microorganisms, and finally returned to the cycle. This chapter presents a brief introduction to the issue associated with municipal and industrial wastewater. Also, this chapter presents detailed information about the conventional wastewater treatment methods. Specifically, it discusses the steps involved in the wastewater treatment viz. primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment.