Abstract
The occurrence and removal of 25 antibiotics, including ten quinolones (QNs), four macrolides (MLs), four tetracyclines (TCs) and seven sulfonamides (SNs), were analysed at two sewage treatment plants (STPs) with different treatment units in Guangxi Province, China. The results showed that 14 and 16 antibiotics were detected in the influent of the two STPs, with concentrations ranging from 13.7-4265.2 ng/L and 14.5-10761.7 ng/L, respectively. Among the antibiotics, TCs were the main type in the study area, accounting for more than 79% of the total concentration of all antibiotics. The antibiotic removal efficiencies of the different process units ranged from -56.73% to 100.0%. It was found that the SN removal efficiency of the multistage composite mobile bed membrane bioreactor (MBBR) process was better than that of the continuous-flow Intermission biological reactor (IBR) process, while the IBR process was better than the MBBR process in terms of removing TCs and MLs; however, there was no obvious difference in the QN removal efficiencies of these two processes. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed a strong correlation between antibiotic concentration and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Risk assessments indicated that algae, followed by invertebrates and fish, were the most sensitive aquatic organisms to the detected antibiotics.
Highlights
Antibiotics usually encompass a variety of compounds with antibacterial activity, including natural, synthetic and semisynthetic compounds (Sarmah et al 2006)
Occurrence and concentrations of antibiotics In the sewage collected from the different treatment units of sewage treatment plants (STPs) 1 and STP 2, the occurrences and concentrations of 25 target antibiotics are shown in Table 1 and Figure 2
The results showed that the detected concentrations of antibiotics were different in the different treatment units
Summary
Antibiotics usually encompass a variety of compounds with antibacterial activity, including natural, synthetic and semisynthetic compounds (Sarmah et al 2006). They can be used to treat human diseases (Qian-Qian et al 2015), promote growth in animal husbandry, and improve feed efficiency (Dan et al 2020). In the past few decades, to meet human health needs and increase economic benefits, antibiotics have played a vital role in medical treatment (Zhi et al 2020), animal husbandry (Gaballah et al 2021) and agriculture (Parente et al 2019). The occurrence, removal and transformation of antibiotics in STPs has become a popular issue in related research fields (Chen et al 2019; Li et al 2021; Wang et al 2021)
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