A chemical, microbiological and (eco)toxicological scheme to understand the efficiency of UV-C/H2O2 oxidation on antibiotic-related microcontaminants in treated urban wastewater

Abstract

An assessment comprising chemical, microbiological and (eco)toxicological parameters of antibiotic-related microcontaminants, during the application of UV-C/H2O2 oxidation in secondary-treated urban wastewater, is presented. The process was investigated at bench scale under different oxidant doses (0–50 mg L−1) with regard to its capacity to degrade a mixture of antibiotics (i.e. ampicillin, clarithromycin, erythromycin, ofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole, tetracycline and trimethoprim) with an initial individual concentration of 100 μg L−1. The process was optimized with respect to the oxidant dose. Under the optimum conditions, the inactivation of selected bacteria and antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) (i.e. faecal coliforms, Enterococcus spp., Pseudomonasaeruginosa and total heterotrophs), and the reduction of the abundance of selected antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) (e.g. blaOXA, qnrS, sul1, tetM) were investigated. Also, phytotoxicity against three plant species, ecotoxicity against Daphnia magna, genotoxicity, oxidative stress and cytotoxicity were assessed.Apart from chemical actinometry, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling was applied to estimate the fluence rate. For the given wastewater quality and photoreactor type used, 40 mg L−1 H2O2 were required for the complete degradation of the studied antibiotics after 18.9 J cm−2. Total bacteria and ARB inactivation was observed at UV doses <1.5 J cm−2 with no bacterial regrowth being observed after 24 h. The abundance of most ARGs was reduced at 16 J cm−2. The process produced a final effluent with lower phytotoxicity compared to the untreated wastewater. The toxicity against Daphnia magna was shown to increase during the chemical oxidation. Although genotoxicity and oxidative stress fluctuated during the treatment, the latter led to the removal of these effects. Overall, it was made apparent from the high UV fluence required, that the particular reactor although extensively used in similar studies, it does not utilize efficiently the incident radiation and thus, seems not to be suitable for this kind of studies.