High performance electroactive ultrafiltration membrane for antibiotic resistance removal from wastewater effluent

As emerging contaminants, antibiotic and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in wastewater effluent induce and increase the risk of antibiotic resistance spreading in the environment. Herein, we fabricated a series of polyaniline/carbon nanotube-assisted electroactive membranes (PANI/CNT-EMs) to remove low-concentration antibiotics (i.e., sulfamethoxazole, SMX), antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB), and ARGs, thus reducing ecotoxicity and antibiotic resistance pollution in wastewater effluent. The PANI/CNT-EMs possess excellent electrochemical properties with a uniform and stable structure. Compared with pristine EMs, the PANI/CNT-EMs effectively enhanced SMX degradation and substantially lessened the ecotoxicity of the degradation products. The PANI/CNT-EMs show higher inactivation ability in intercepted ARB and significant degradation of both intracellular and extracellular ARGs (iARGs and eARGs) during wastewater effluent electrofiltration under a low voltage of +2 V. More importantly, the reduced integron (i.e., intI1) abundance and ARG transfer frequency further demonstrated that the PANI/CNT-EMs are more conducive to controlling the spread of antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, compared with pristine EMs, the antifouling property of PANI/CNT-EMs is improved by 42.1% during wastewater effluent treatment. Overall, these findings offer a promising approach for antibiotic resistance control in wastewater effluent treatment.