Perchlorate anion is a widespread, environmentally persistent contaminant recently discovered in U.S. groundwater and drinking water supplies that affect tens of millions of people. This book will summarize the most current knowledge and understandings of the extent of perchlorate contamination, chemical behavior, and recent development in innovative remediation technologies for perchlorate in the environment. Additionally, its natural occurrence and its unique isotopic signature (between natural and anthropogenic sources) and novel detection techniques are provided. The book is intended to provide the most comprehensive reference for environmental professionals, decision makers, geoscientists, university students and professors, and the general public.

This book will provide a detailed description of the perchlorate chemistry and recent advances in innovative remediation technologies for perchlorate contamination and their pros and cons. Additionally, it will be the first book to describe the natural occurrence of perchlorate and its unique isotopic signatures for environmental forensics and its detection in the environment, particularly the real-time analysis using surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

Baohua Gu is a research scientist at Oak Ridge National laboratory since 1993. He has been a researcher for the past 18 years who has published over 50 refereed articles His research highlights include biogeochemical processes, nano-scale complexity at mineral-water interface, and molecular and interfacial mechanisms controlling the retention and transport processes of organic and inorganic pollutants among numerous other projects. He was awarded by R& D Magazine for ORNL highly selective, regenerable perchlorate treatment system in 2004.

Bruce Logan has been teaching at Penn State since 1997. For the previous ten years he taught Chemical and Environmental Engineering the University of Arizona Tucson. He has published close to100 refereed articles. He authored "Environmental Transport Processes" with John Wiley and Sons in 1998. Among his awards is the Pennsylvania Water Environment Association Professional Research Award for outstanding research (2003). His research focuses on Bioenergy Production, environmental transport processes and bioremediation and treatment. His 2001 article in Environmental Science and Technology, 35:23 titled "Assessing the outlook for perchlorate remediation" is highly cited.

John Coates is an Associate Professor of Microbiology at the University of California, Berkeley since 2002. For the previous five years he was Assistant Professor of Microbiology at Southern Illinois University. His main research interest is geomicrobiology applied to environmental problems. He has given more than 60 invited presentations at international meetings. He has authored more than 60 peer reviewed articles including 3 in Nature. He is on the editorial board for the journals Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, and Geomicrobiology Journal.