Antibiotics elimination and risk reduction at two drinking water treatment plants by using different conventional treatment techniques

Safe drinking water is essential for the wellbeing of people around the world. In this work, the occurrence, distribution, and elimination of four groups of antibiotics including fluoroquinolones, sulfonamides, chloramphenicols and macrolides (21 antibiotics total), were studied in two drinking water treatment plants during the wet and dry seasons. In the drinking water source (river), the most abundant group was fluoroquinolones. In contrast, chloramphenicols were all under the limitation of detection. Total concentration of all investigated antibiotics was higher in dissolved phase (62-3.3 x 10(2) ng L-1) than in particulate phase (2.3-7.1 ng L-1) during both wet and dry seasons in two plants. With the treatment process of flocculation horizontal flow sedimentation -> V type filtration liquid -> Cl-2 chlorination, approximately 57.5% (the dry season) and 73.6% (the wet season) of total antibiotics in dissolved phase, and 46.3% (the dry season) and 51.0% (the wet season) in particulate phase were removed. In contrast, the removal efficiencies of total antibiotics were obtained as -49.6% (the dry season) and 52.3% (the wet season) in dissolved phase, and -15.5% (the dry season) and 44.3% (the wet season) in particulate phase, during the process of grille flocculation -> tube settler sedimentation -> siphon filtration -> ClO2 chlorination. Sulfonamides were found to be typically easily removed antibiotics from the dissolved and particulate phases during both seasons. Through a human health risk assessment, we found that the former treatment technologies were much better than the later for risk reduction. Overall, it can be concluded that the treatment processes currently used should be modified to increase emerging contaminant elimination efficiency and ensure maintenance of proper water quality.