Photo- and Bio-degradation of Selected Persistent Organic Pollutants

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) enter into the environment through various anthropogenic activities and cause air, water and soil pollution depending on their persistence in different matrices. POPs present in all the segments of environment are inherently toxic and accumulate in food products by atmospheric deposition from air, translocation in plants through contaminated soils and in seafood through polluted water. Moreover, the food products also get contaminated with POPs during the cooking processes including grilling and roasting. POPs settle down on soil and water surface through atmospheric fallout from air. The degradation of environmental pollutants has been achieved by different techniques such as photocatalysis and biodegradation. The separation and identification of degraded products as well as metabolites have been done preferably using liquid chromatographic techniques. Various pathways of degradation have also been suggested for degradation of different environmental pollutants. The review focuses on the application of latest chromatographic techniques for separation and identification of different degradation products of persistent organic pollutants and recent advancement in the areas of POPs analysis using liquid chromatographic techniques.