The degradation, biodegradability and toxicity evaluation of sulfamethazine antibiotics by gamma radiation

Abstract This study evaluated gamma radiation-enhanced sulfamethazine (SMT) degradation, which belongs to the heterocyclic sulfonamides, in different conditions in aqueous solution. The results showed that gamma irradiation could increase the SMT removal in aqueous solution, and the SMT degradation kinetic follow the modified pseudo-first-order kinetic. The degradation rate was nearly 95% at the absorbed dose of 4 kGy. The removal of total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN) could be also induced. When the radiation dose was 5 kGy, the removal rates were only about 6.8% and 10.5% for TOC and TN, respectively. Some ions including HCOO − , CH 3 COO − and SO 4 2− released during SMT degradation were studied. The biodegradability and toxicity of intermediate products of the SMT degradation were also proposed in this experiment. The biodegradability of the SMT can be improved by the intermediate products of SMT degradation at the radiation dose of 1, 2 and 5 kGy. Gamma radiation could be used as a pretreatment technology before the biodegradation process of pharmaceutical waste water.