Removal of Antibiotics During In-situ Sludge Ozone-reduction Process

Abstract

Two sequencing batch reactors were established at bench-scale, with one used as an in-situ sludge ozone-reduction system and the other as a control system. Both systems were continuously operated for 90 days to comparatively investigate the elimination of nine typical antibiotics (i.e., tetracycline, oxytetracycline, doxytetracycline, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, lomefloxacin, enrofloxacin, and azithromycin) during the in-situ sludge ozone-reduction process. Results indicated that the presence of target antibiotics in the influent (100 μg·L-1 each) had an insignificant influence on the removal of COD, total nitrogen, ammonia, and total phosphorus by the activated sludge. The antibiotic concentrations in the effluent of the reduction system remained fairly stable over the entire operation period, and were similar to those in the effluent of the control system; however, the antibiotic concentrations in the sludge of the reduction system were obviously lower than those in the control system sludge. Mass balance calculations revealed that the input and output of target antibiotics gradually approached balance in both the systems. Ozone degradation and excess sludge discharge were the main pathways for target antibiotic removal in the reduction and the control systems, respectively. The influent antibiotics could be degraded by 83% in the sludge ozonation module of the reduction system, while 82% of the influent antibiotics were discharged with excess sludge in the control system. Therefore, the in-situ sludge ozone-reduction process could greatly reduce the release of antibiotics from the activated sludge system, which is of great importance in practice.