Application of advanced oxidation processes for removal of antibiotics and a wide range of antibiotic resistance genes from Finnish reject waters.
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu |
Master's thesis
Author
Date
2023-06-12
Department
Major/Subject
Water and Wastewater Engineering
Mcode
Degree programme
Master's Programme in Water and Environmental Engineering (WAT)
Language
en
Pages
69+16
Series
Abstract
The presence of antibiotics in the influent and effluent from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is considered to be established worldwide. Moreover, studies of freshwater contamination with antibiotic metabolites were performed to prove the anthropogenic impact on ecosystems. In addition, WWTPs were reported as hotspots of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) and bacteria (ARBs) formation, accumulation and spread. Nevertheless, little attention was paid to internal wastewater recycling at WWTP in the form of reject waters after sewage sludge dewatering. Usually, untreated reject waters are recycled back to WWTP’s influent, where biological treatment occurs. Despite low flow rates compared to general WWTP influents, reject waters are concentrated and significantly impact the main treatment process. Therefore, side-stream (e.g., reject water flow) treatment is introduced at WWTPs in Finland to address nitrogen removal mainly. The leading technology ANITATM Mox implemented for reject waters is based on a moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) and deammonification. While implementing ANITATM Mox for reject water treatment in Finland, a lack of information on antibiotics loads and ARBs was detected. Therefore, this study aims to investigate antibiotics' presence in reject waters at Finnish WWTPs in different process steps. Moreover, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) application was studied to address antibiotics and ARBs removal from reject waters. Express plating with two target antibiotics (TMP/SMX) was used to detect the efficiency of AOPs in terms of ARB reduction. Furthermore, antibiotic resistant gene analysis was performed to determine the scale of resistance challenge in reject waters and detect highly abundant ARGs for further studies. Moreover, AOPs and ANITA Mox processes were modeled using SUMO (Dynamita).Description
Supervisor
Mikola, AnnaThesis advisor
Tsytlishvili, KaterynaKruglova, Antonina
Keywords
advanced oxidation processes, antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria, reject waters
