Insights into the Fate and Removal of Antibiotics in Engineered Biological Treatment Systems: A Critical Review

Abstract

Antibiotics, the most frequently prescribed drugs of modern medicine, are extensively used for both human and veterinary applications. Antibiotics from different wastewater sources (e.g., municipal, hospitals, animal production, and pharmaceutical industries) ultimately are discharged into wastewater treatment plants. Sorption and biodegradation are the two major removal pathways of antibiotics during biological wastewater treatment processes. This review provides the fundamental insights into sorption mechanisms and biodegradation pathways of different classes of antibiotics with diverse physical–chemical attributes. Important factors affecting sorption and biodegradation behavior of antibiotics are also highlighted. Furthermore, this review also sheds light on the critical role of extracellular polymeric substances on antibiotics adsorption and their removal in engineered biological wastewater treatment systems. Despite major advancements, engineered biological wastewater treatment systems are only moderately effective (48–77%) in the removal of antibiotics. In this review, we systematically summarize the behavior and removal of different antibiotics in various biological treatment systems with discussion on their removal efficiency, removal mechanisms, critical bioreactor operating conditions affecting antibiotics removal, and recent innovative advancements. Besides, relevant background information including antibiotics classification, physical–chemical properties, and their occurrence in the environment from different sources is also briefly covered. This review aims to advance our understanding of the fate of various classes of antibiotics in engineered biological wastewater treatment systems and outlines future research directions.

Occurrence and risks of antibiotics in an urban river in northeastern Tibetan Plateau

“…High concentrations of individual antibiotics up to several μg/L were also detected in other E-STPs in the world, e.g. 0.011-8.3, 0.001-1.8, and 0.024-6.8 μg/L for SMX, TMP, and OFL, respectively 9 . SAs, QNs, and MLs were also frequently detected in STPs worldwide 27 .…”

“…The high population density in cities lead to large consumption and emission of antibiotics. Sewage, hospitals, livestock and poultry farms, and aquaculture are important pollution sources of antibiotics 9 . Besides domestic sewage, industrial and hospital wastewater are also discharged into sewage treatment plants (STPs) 10 .…”

“…Besides domestic sewage, industrial and hospital wastewater are also discharged into sewage treatment plants (STPs) 10 . As a pool of antibiotics, the effluent of STPs (E-STPs) showed relatively high levels of antibiotics, up to several µg/L, because of their incomplete removal by engineered biological treatment systems 9 – 12 . Urban rivers are the major acceptor of E-STPs, so they suffered from severe pollution of antibiotics 10 , 13 , 14 .…”

Fate of environmental pollutants: A review

“…Another review article focused on sorption and biodegradation pathways of various antibiotics in engineered biological wastewater treatment systems (Oberoi, Jia, Zhang, Khanal, & Lu, 2019). Authors concluded that redox conditions influenced the abundance and distribution of microbial communities and sorption and biodegradation mechanisms.…”

Terbium-Tetracarboxylate Framework as a Luminescent Probe for the Selective Detection of Nitrofurazone

“…Antibiotics are widely used as the specific drug for treating bacterial infection in humans and animals, while the abuse of antibiotics has caused the high levels of antibiotic residues in surface and groundwater as well as in drinking water [1][2][3]. Owing to the antibiotic wastewaters being highly poisonous and difficult to degrade, monitoring of antibiotic wastewaters was significant, but challenging [4,5]. Compared with the traditional detection method of antibiotics using instrumental methods such as liquid chromatography (LC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS), Raman spectroscopy (RS), ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), and so forth, the metal organic frameworks (MOFs) used as luminescent probes for the selective detection of antibiotics has been considered as a very effective and proven technology [6][7][8][9][10][11].…”