Occurrence and removal of antibiotics from industrial wastewater

Water recycling is of increasing concern due to the shortage of natural resources, calling for advanced methods to remove contaminants. Indeed, the transfer of contaminants to living organisms may lead to bioaccumulation and diseases. In particular, the overuse of antibiotics for human and animal health has led to antibiotic pollution in waters, sludges and crop soils, and, in turn, to the unintended development of multi-resistant bacteria, named antibiotic resistance. Here we review antibiotic properties, antibiotic occurrence in wastewater, and antibiotic removal. Remediation techniques include electrocoagulation, photocatalysis, Fenton process, sonocatalysis, ozonation, membrane filtration, adsorption and ionizing irradiation. Nanofilters and reverse osmosis showed the highest removal of antibiotics in a bioreactor, averaging at 95%. Recently developed methods such as photocatalysis, sonocatalysis and ozone oxidation show a removal of about 98%.