Collision of emerging and traditional methods for antibiotics removal: Taking constructed wetlands and nanotechnology as an example

The increasingly serious pollution of antibiotics in the aqueous environment has already caused a major threat to human survival and has aroused widespread public concern. Studies on the remediation of antibiotic pollution are thus increasing. This paper focuses on the recent advances in high-efficiency methods for antibiotics removal including constructed wetlands (CWs) and nanomaterials. CWs mainly rely on the synergistic action of substrate adsorption, plant absorption and microbial degradation to remove antibiotics. Intrinsic factors such as wetland plants and microbial species, substrate, wetland configuration, and external factors (e.g., pH, metal ions, time, temperature and light) affect the removal effect of antibiotics. While nanomaterials (e.g., TiO2, g-C3N4 graphene and ZnO-MgO nanocomposites) mainly remove antibiotics by photocatalysis and adsorption oxidation. Further efforts should primarily aim toward increasing their performance to treat antibiotic wastewater.