Source Characterisation and Contamination

Nowadays, the environment is being continuously contaminated by different pollutants, including many organic pollutants that are chiral. It is well known that several toxic pollutants enter into the human body via the food chain. Well-known toxic chiral contaminants include pesticides, plasticisers phenols, biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and some drugs. It is interesting to mention that, nowadays, the drugs present in the environment are considered as the new emerging pollutants (Xing et al. 2011). Therefore, in spite of curing properties, the chiral drugs are considered as pollutants if present in the environment. Often, this is due to the fact that one of the enantiomers exhibits toxic properties. For example, in the case of thalidomide the (-)-enantiomer is known to be teratogenic (Schmahl et al. 1988; Eriksson et al. 1998). Additionally, γ-hexachlorocyclohexane (γ-HCH)—an achiral pesticide—degrades in chiral and toxic γ-pentachlorocyclohexene (γ-PCCH) enantiomers (Klobes et al. 1998; Moisey et al. 2001; Yang et al. 2010). This chapter deals with the source characterisation and contamination of chiral pollutants.