Non-target screening of emerging contaminants in landfills: A review

Leachate from landfills is considered an important point source of contamination, which poses significant threat to the receiving ecosystems and their resources. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the occurrence of contaminants, and develop effective treatment processes, and to achieve this, target, suspect and non-target screening must be employed. The most recent publications describing the chemical composition of landfill leachates and groundwater wells were reviewed. The steps of sample preparation, instrumental analysis, data acquisition, and data processing are thoroughly described, and critically discussed. Finally, an overview of the limitations, research gaps and future perspectives is discussed and recent non-target screening advances in future studies are proposed, aiming to achieve an in-depth chemical characterization of landfill samples.