An Overview of Treatment of Antibiotics Using Advanced Oxidation Process

Abstract

Antibiotics present in the environment are originated from pharmaceutical manufacturing processes or through wastes such as urine and feces. As antibiotics remain recalcitrant and persist in the treated water, consumption of treated water containing antibiotics raises a concern in the development of antibiotic resistance bacteria which would be later released to the environment. It might result in a vicious cycle which new antibiotics needs to be developed and dosage has to increase. Advanced oxidation processes (AOP) have been studied to effectively degrade antibiotics. During this process, hydroxyl radicals are formed to degrade organic compounds. Different APO are available in the literature such as photo-Fenton, Fenton, ozonation, sonolysis (UV), ultrasound combined with ozone, TiO2/direct photolysis, UV/H2O2, UV/ TiO2, UV/IGBT. To treat the high level of concentration of antibiotics, retention time of AOPs needs to be extended or/and OH• radicals need to be produced in a higher concentration for a complete mineralization.