Concluding Remarks and Future Perspectives

This final chapter intends to convey to the readers the main lessons learned so far, the most important challenges found and an overview of the possible research trends yet to explore in the study of volatile methylsiloxanes (VMSs) in the environment. From all the excellent contributions to this book, besides a comprehensive and thorough display of properties, levels, trends and advances of the current state of the art in several environmental matrices, a number of gaps were detected and discussed and new solutions suggested. Therefore, it is expected that in the near future, the development of new management strategies; new findings regarding the occurrence, behaviour and toxicity of volatile methylsiloxanes; the improvement of risk assessment studies; and the inclusion of chronic exposure assays of mixtures of these substances are the pathways to enhance the expertise of scientists and stakeholders on the science of siloxanes.