Occurrence, Transformation, and Fate of Antibiotics in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants

Occurrence, transformation, and fate of antibiotics in municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are becoming an emerging environmental research area. As pseudopersistent pollutants, antibiotics belonging to 6 classes (i.e., β-lactams, sulfonamides, quinolones, tetracyclines, macrolides, and others) have been frequently detected in sewage, activated sludge, digested sludge, and effluents. The authors summarized the latest information on occurrence, transformation, and fate of antibiotics in WWTPs based on more than 90 papers published in the past 8 years. The results show that extensive researches on antibiotics occurrence have been conducted mainly in East Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Adsorption, biodegradation, disinfection, and membrane separation were the dominant removal routes for antibiotic in different wastewater treatment processes of WWTPs. Many antibiotics cannot be removed completely in wastewater treatment processes and would enter into environment via effluent and sludge.