NEW CHALLENGES IN THE APPLICATION OF ADVANCED OXIDATION PROCESSES

The 2nd Summer School on BEnvironmental Applications of Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs)^ organized by BEuropean PhD School on AOPs^ jointly with the NEREUS (COST Action ES1403) (http://www.nereus-cost.eu/) Summer School on BAdvanced Treatment Technologies and Contaminants of Emerging Concern^ was held in Porto, Portugal, July 10–14, 2017, and chaired by Prof. Adrián M. T. Silva, Prof. Despo Fatta-Kassinos, Prof. Luigi Rizzo, and Dr. Vítor J.P. Vilar. More than 130 scientists (including 65 Ph. D. researchers) and professionals from 21 countries attended the School.

The Summer School program included the following: (i) a section devoted to PhD students (BFloor to PhD Students^) where they had the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work, as well as to meet experts from the School; (ii) a special session on BContaminants of emerging concern and antibiotic resistance control in water by AOPs^; (iii) lectures on complementary skills; (iv) a workshop on advanced treatments delivered by School scientific members and international experts; and (v) a technical-social visit.

The European PhD School on AOPs^ (AOPs School), founded in June 2014 by a group of European scientists from different Universities and Research Institutes, promotes the higher education of young researchers in the environmental applications of AOPs (www.aops-school.com). Currently, the School includes 53 Scientific Committee (SC) members from 14 different European Countries.

The Summer School is among the initiatives organized for School PhD candidates (which can attend for free), but other PhD students, MSc students, postdoctoral researchers, and professionals are also welcome. This special issue of Environmental Science and Pollution Research contains a selection of 11 papers presented at the Summer School.

The topics include new photocatalytic materials as well as environmental remediation/ disinfection of water, wastewater, and air, using different AOPs. The guest editors would like to thank all the authors for the innovative scientific contributions to this special issue, the reviewers whose comments and suggestions were extremely important to achieve high-quality papers, as well as the institutions and companies that sponsored the Summer School.

We also thank ESPR Editor-in-Chief Philippe Garrigues and the editorial assistants Fanny Creusot and Joanne Cabato for their assistance/help/support in the preparation of this special issue. Vítor J.P. Vilar and Adrián M.T. Silva acknowledge the financial resources provided by Project POCI-01-0145FEDER-006984 – Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM funded by FEDER through COMPETE2020 Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) – and by national funds through FCT Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Vítor J.P. Vilar also wishes to thank the FCT Investigator 2013 Programme (IF/00273/ 2013). Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues.