Occurrence and fate of ten sulfonamide antibiotics in typical wastewater treatment plants in the City of Jinan of Northeastern China
Bin Zhao, Ying Liu, Wenping Dong, Ming Li, Shaoyong Lu, Weiliang Wang, Yuqi Fan
Abstract
ABSTRACT This study investigated the concentration levels and removal efficiencies of sulfonamide antibiotics in the effluents of different sections of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and explored the removal of sulfonamide antibiotics from the effluent of each section by modified activated carbon. The results showed that the wastewater treatment process has a certain removal effect on the nine sulfonamide antibiotics except on the negative removal of trimethoprim, which had a removal rate of less than 60%. The effect of WWTP pH was found to be obvious, demonstrating a negative correlation with the occurrence of antibiotics. The occurrence of sulfadimethoxine and sulfachloro- pyridazine was found to be mainly affected by total nitrogen, NH 3 –N and NO 3 – –N. After equilibrium adsorption by MAC-1 (activated carbon modified by FeCl 3 ) and MAC-2 (activated carbon modified by hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide) for 24 h, the removal efficiencies of sulfonamide antibiotics in the effluent of each section ranged from 87.37% to 100%. Our results suggest that the removal rates of ten sulfonamide antibiotics in WWTPs are not clear.