Radiation-induced degradation of sulfonamide and quinolone antibiotics: A brief review

Sulfonamide and quinolone antibiotics are widely used worldwide for disease prevention and treatment, which are ubiquitous in aquatic environments, soil, and animal waste because they are difficult to be removed in conventional wastewater treatment processes. Antibiotic residues in the environment can lead to the development of bacterial resistance, posing a potential hazard to humans and ecosystems. Ionizing radiation (γ-ray and high-energy electron beam), as an emerging advanced oxidation technology, has received increasing attention in antibiotics’ treatment because of its reliable, safe operation and excellent degradation capability. This paper mainly summarized and analyzed the recent advances in the radiation-induced degradation of sulfonamide and quinolone antibiotics in aqueous solution, focusing on the influencing factors (such as absorbed dose, initial concentration of antibiotics, pH, inorganic anions and water matrices) and degradation pathways, which could provide references for the optimization of experimental conditions and mechanism studies on the treatment of these two types of antibiotics in actual wastewater and further practical application by ionizing irradiation.