Simultaneous removal of antibiotics and inactivation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria by photocatalysis: A review

To deal with the contamination of the water environment, which represents an arena for microorganisms and antibiotics, a photocatalytic process has been proposed due to its high efficiency and non-toxicity. This review discusses and investigates antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) removal and inactivation with their associated genes through photocatalysis technique as an efficient and ecofriendly advanced oxidation process (AOP) photocatalysis. The paper summarizes recent studies that dealt with both pollutants and their process parameters, optimal operating conditions, used semiconductor photocatalysts and their corresponding removal efficiency. Thus, it suggests that photocatalysis can offer impressive treatment efficiencies for both organic and microbial pollutants simultaneously. The review also states that both antibiotics and bacteria have a destroying effect against each other, where antibiotics have antimicrobial activity and bacteria have microbial degradation. This phenomenon creates a hybrid system for each pollutant (photocatalysis-bacteria, photocatalysis-antibiotic, bacteria-antibiotic), which accelerates the purification and disinfection of the polluted water caused by pathogens and hazardous pollutants using green and safe technology. Moreover, the reaction mechanism was detailed in order to define the role of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Likewise, photocatalysis coupling with other AOP techniques in this context was discussed to achieve more promising results. The main contribution of this review is to explain the relationship between antibiotics, microbial contaminants and photocatalysis. It also introduces a new area of study and concludes with an outlook on future research topics, such as viral disinfection.