Review of antibiotics treatment by advance oxidation processes

Antibiotics are extensively used in medicines and veterinary. They are becoming emerging pollutants for soil and water through effluents from domestic and industrial wastewater. The world health organization (WHO) has identified the spread of antibiotics resistance as one of the major threat and risk for global public health in the future. Therefore, attentions are paid to remove antibiotics from water and wastewater. Various methodologies have been applied for treatment of antibiotics from water and wastewater, those including biological, physical and chemical methods. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) with fast reaction rates and strong oxidizing abilities received more attentions among all methods applied for treatment of antibiotics. This review presents various AOPs for oxidation and treatment of antibiotics from wastewater, such as Fenton and Fenton-like oxidation, ozonation and catalytic ozonation, photocatalytic oxidation, electrochemical oxidation and wet oxidation processes, including their brief introduction, principles, main characteristics, factors affecting treatment and their applications. Furthermore, their current applications for the treatment of antibiotics in wastewater are analyzed and summarized. The drawback and advantages of AOPs and the strategies for addressing them, their future perspectives and challenges are argued and concluding remarks are given.