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Impacts of advanced treatment processes on elimination of antibiotic resistance genes in a municipal wastewater treatment plant

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Abstract

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) pose a serious threat to public health. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are essential for controlling the release of ARGs into the environment. This study investigated ARG distribution at every step in the treatment process of a municipal WWTP located in Harbin for six consecutive months. Changes in ARG distribution involved in two advanced secondary effluent treatment processes, ozonation and granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption, were analyzed. Biological treatment resulted in the highest ARG removal (0.76–1.94 log reduction), followed by ultraviolet (UV) disinfection (less than 0.5-log reduction). Primary treatment could not significantly remove ARGs. ARG removal efficiency increased with an increase in the ozone dose below 40 mg/L. However, amorphous GAC (AGAC) adsorption with a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 1 h showed better removal of ARGs, total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) than ozonation at a 60 mg/L dose. UV treatment could efficiently reduce the relative ARG abundance, despite presenting the lowest efficiency for the reduction of absolute ARG abundance compared with GAC and ozone treatments. The combination of ozone and AGAC can significantly improve the removal of ARGs, TOC, TN and TP. These results indicate that a treatment including biological processing, ozonation, and AGAC adsorption is a promising strategy for removing ARGs and refractory organic substances from sewage.

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Acknowledgements

The authors greatly appreciate the financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFC0406303), and the National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Municipal Sewage Resource Utilization Technology, Suzhou University of Science and Technology (No. 2018KF06). The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology (SKLUWRE, HIT), Harbin, 150090, China

    Lian Yang, Qinxue Wen & Ran Duan

  2. National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Municipal Sewage Resource Utilization Technology, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, 215009, China

    Zhiqiang Chen & Pan Yang

Authors
  1. Lian Yang
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  2. Qinxue Wen
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  3. Zhiqiang Chen
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  4. Ran Duan
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  5. Pan Yang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhiqiang Chen.

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Highlights

• The distributions of ARGs were monitored in a WWTP in Harbin during six months.

• CASS had the best removal efficacy of ARGs compared to other processes in the WWTP.

• UV disinfection could effectively control the HGT.

• AGAC significantly remove ARGs and organics due to its high absorption capacity.

• Combination of ozone and AGAC significantly improve removal of ARGs and organics.

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11783_2019_1116_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Impacts of advanced treatment processes on elimination of antibiotic resistance genes in a municipal wastewater treatment plant

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Yang, L., Wen, Q., Chen, Z. et al. Impacts of advanced treatment processes on elimination of antibiotic resistance genes in a municipal wastewater treatment plant. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 13, 32 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-019-1116-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-019-1116-5

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