Environmental nano-pollutants (ENP) and aquatic micro-interfacial processes.

The concepts of nano-science and technology are penetrating into the aspects of environmental science and technology. Environmental nano-pollutants (ENP) is suggested. as a specific category of pollutants that presents many common critical characters impacting the natural and social ecosystems. The outstanding properties are the various reactions in the macro-interfacial processes. Several examples as the adsorption of rare-earth metals on Chinese loess, the adsorption of PAHs on aquatic sediments with humic substances and the speciation of nano-flocculants in the water and wastewater treatment are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]