Present review explores fluoride (Fˉ) contamination (geogenic and anthropogenic) and public health concern worldwide. Review synthesizes the groundwater Fˉ contamination, including a structured global dataset (522 regional records; 91 countries; 6 continents), examining geogenic/anthropogenic water-rock interaction governing Fˉ mobilization, thermodynamic constraints, climate-dependent global distribution (fluoride belts), and dose-dependent health effects. Fluoride-enrichment is governed by ‘thermodynamic limitations’ on fluorite solubility and mineralogical sources [CaF2, Ca5(PO4)3F, etc.] driven by water-rock-interaction in alkaline environments through calcite precipitation and Ca2+ depletion toward Na–HCO3 hydrochemical facies. PHREEQC-based saturation index (SI) modelling confirms this pattern across regional datasets (e.g., fluorite SI: −2.77 to + 2.71), with Gibbs free energy quantifying dissolution-versus-precipitation. Climatic aridity and long-groundwater-residence-times (Paleowater) enhances Fˉ-accumulation ranging from < 0.5 mg/L (low-risk regions) to > 30 mg/L in global fluoride belts (highly-risk: Asia, Africa, etc.). Estimated 180–200 million people worldwide are potentially exposed to Fˉ exceeding the WHO guideline (1.5 mg/L), with dental fluorosis affecting up to 70
PFAS are commonly used in industrial process. Nonetheless, they are persistent in environment leading to a significant threat to organisms and human health. This perspective review traces the occurrence, extraction including separation and analysis, and removal methods of PFAS in environment to reveal their effectiveness, mechanism, and scalable, also enabling their advancement. The highest PFAS accumulation was found, including PFDS (62.56 ng/g), PFOS (40237 ng/mg), 6:2 FTOH (500 pg/m3), and PFPHpA (43.20 ng/L) in sediment, soil, atmosphere, and surface water. They can accumulate in liver, intestine, muscle, spleen, renal, lung, cytoplasm, plasma, hepatocytes, and placenta. In environment, transport takes place via hydrophobic, electrostatic, ligand exchange, and hydrogen bonds. PFAS contaminate organisms via passive diffusion, active transport, transformation, accumulation, and excretion. Integrated technique is the promising removal strategy since have better performance compared to stand alone technique, whilst temperature, humidity, carbon content, mass ratio, and time transport influence PFAS removals. In the future, these findings will guide strategies to prevent PFAS contamination.
This review examines the interactions and cascading impacts of compound climate extremes, such as concurrent droughts, heatwaves, and floods, under climate change. It highlights their growing yet often overlooked threats to water quality, food security, and ecosystem resilience, and emphasizes their systemic implications for coupled human–environment systems. Recent literature reveals that compound extremes such as concurrent droughts, floods, and heatwaves generate amplified and disproportionate impacts due to their interdependent dynamics. Urbanization intensifies these effects by disrupting hydrological processes and enhancing thermal retention through mechanisms like the urban heat island effect. Despite growing recognition of their complexity, most predictive models remain limited by inadequate feedback integration, insufficient spatiotemporal resolution, and uneven regional adaptation capacities. This review highlights mounting evidence that compound extremes significantly degrade water quality by mobilizing both geogenic and emerging contaminants such as heavy metals, nutrients, pharmaceuticals, and microplastics under shifting flow, temperature, and redox conditions. While quantile-based thresholds and hazard overlays are commonly used for characterizing these events, gaps remain in linking compound hazard typologies with contaminant pathways and water system responses across diverse climatic and infrastructural contexts. This review synthesizes global literature on compound climate extremes to identify event patterns, vulnerabilities, and modeling gaps. It underscores the need for integrated planning, early warning systems, and adaptive governance to manage escalating multi-hazard risks. Particular focus is placed on emerging contaminant mobilization, urban stressors, and scalable resilience strategies, offering actionable insights for climate-informed decision-making.
This review looks at how the chemical forms, movement, and availability of metal and metalloid contaminants affect food safety and public health. It brings together recent developments in detecting these contaminants in soil, water, and food, and points out the move from traditional lab methods to newer diagnostic tools. In the past five years, research has focused on creating electrochemical and spectroscopic sensors for real-time monitoring. The review also points out that more nanomaterials are being used to improve sensitivity. It compares contamination levels in farming systems to international standards and finds important gaps in regulations for new types of metalloids. The findings show that diagnostic techniques have improved a lot, but they are not widely used in the field yet. The review suggests new directions, like portable sensors and better models for identifying chemical forms. These tools are important for solving global farming challenges and keeping the food supply safe over time.
Microwave disinfection technology is rapidly evolving from traditional thermal treatment to controllable physical field-driven methods. Its disinfection effects in water, solid, and air media can rival or even surpass those of chemical disinfection. By re-examining the long-standing debate around thermal and non-thermal effects, this review systematically summarizes the progress in microwave disinfection research. It aims to provide a theoretical basis and forward-looking directions for the development of precise, efficient, and energy-saving microwave disinfection strategies. This review addresses the ambiguity between thermal and non-thermal effects in microwave disinfection, as well as the lack of quantification regarding their synergistic mechanisms, and proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework. Thermal effects achieve rapid inactivation through volumetric heating of dielectric materials; efficient disinfection can be attained within one minute when temperatures reach or exceed 80°C. When electric field strength exceeds 1.5 kV·m⁻¹ and specific absorption rate (SAR) surpasses 5 kW·kg⁻¹, non-thermal effects can act independently of overall temperature, inducing microbial inactivation via electroporation and intracellular reactive oxygen species generation. Compared to a thermal effect baseline of 0.7-1.4 log reduction, non-thermal effects contribute an additional 1.1-1.8 log inactivation, increasing total inactivation efficiency by 2 to 4 times. Under typical low ionic strength aqueous conditions, the transition between dominant thermal and non-thermal effects is determined by a power density threshold of approximately 60 W·L⁻¹. In microwave-assisted advanced oxidation processes (MW-AOPs), confining radical reactions to the catalyst surface reduces energy consumption to 0.08 kWh·log⁻¹. Furthermore, a classification strategy based on microbial structure has been established: Gram-negative (G⁻) bacteria with high-dielectric-loss outer membranes are best suited for continuous-wave treatment, whereas Gram-positive (G⁺) bacteria require pulsed microwave modulation to penetrate their thick peptidoglycan barrier. This review provides a scientific foundation for the rational design of efficient, low-energy microwave disinfection systems.
