Degradation of Antibiotic Activity during UV/H2O2 Advanced Oxidation and Photolysis in Wastewater Effluent

Trace levels of antibiotics in treated wastewater effluents may present a human health risk due to the rise of antibacterial activity in the downstream environments. Advanced oxidation has a potential to become an effective treatment technology for transforming trace antibiotics in wastewater effluents, but residual or newly generated antibacterial properties of transformation products are a concern. This study demonstrates the effect of UV photolysis and UV/H2O2 advanced oxidation on transformation of 6 antibiotics, each a representative of a different structural class, in pure water and in two different effluents and reports new or confirmatory photolysis quantum yields and hydroxyl radical rate constants. The decay of the parent compound was monitored with HPLC/ITMS, and the corresponding changes in antibacterial activity were measured using bacterial inhibition assays. No antibacterially active products were observed following treatment for four of the six antibiotics (clindamycin, ciprofloxacin, penicillin-G, and trimethoprim). The remaining two antibiotics (erythromycin and doxycycline) showed some intermediates with antibacterial activity at low treatment doses. The antibacterially active products lost activity as the UV dose increased past 500 mJ/cm(2). Active products were observed only in wastewater effluents and not in pure water, suggesting that complex secondary reactions controlled by the composition of the matrix were responsible for their formation. This outcome emphasizes the importance of bench-scale experiments in realistic water matrices. Most importantly, the results indicate that photosensitized processes during high dose wastewater disinfection may be creating antibacterially active transformation products from some common antibiotics.