Aeration-driven piezoelectric activation of peroxymonosulfate achieves effective mitigation of antibiotic resistance dissemination

The antibiotic resistance dissemination in water has become a globally concerned issue, and the wastewater discharge, especially medical wastewater, is considered as one of the most important sources for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). However, the effectiveness of current disinfection techniques in the ARGs reduction still remains controversial. In this study, a novel aeration-driven piezoelectric peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation system using oxygen-vacancy engineered BaTiO3 (BTO) was developed to effectively eliminate antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and ARGs from water. The ARB can be completely inactivated and ∼3.0 logs of ARGs can be removed by the PMS/BTO/aeration system within 1 h, and the spent BTO nanoparticles can be facilely reused after simple rinsing. The aeration can not only provide the driving force for the piezocatalytic process but also more dissolved oxygen in water that played an important role in the generation of free radicals. The radical quenching experiments and electron spin-resonance (ESR) confirmed that all the free radicals, including singlet oxygen (1O2), hydroxyl radical (OH•), sulfate radical (SO4•−) and superoxide radical (•O2−), contributed to the ARGs reduction and 1O2 radicals were identified as the dominant active species. This work provides a high-efficiency and energy saving approach for the mitigation of ARGs from water as the universal use of aeration in water treatment processes and the good reusability of BTO nanoparticles.