Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Nanjing, 210042, China.
Faculty of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2016 Aug;23(16):16513-23. doi: 10.1007/s11356-016-6676-3. Epub 2016 May 12.
Vancomycin (VCM) is an antibiotic, known medically as the deadline for defending against bacteria. In this study, the removal and fate of VCM were investigated in each treatment unit at two pharmaceutical wastewater treatment plants (PWWTPs) in eastern China. VCM was present in all wastewater and sludge samples of both PWWTPs. After the treatment procedure (the moving bed biofilm reactor technology for PWWTP1 and the modified anaerobic-anoxic-oxic technology for PWWTP2), total removal efficiencies were up to 99 %, corresponding to a reduction of two orders of magnitude of the influent concentrations in both PWWTPs. The aerobic tank dominated VCM removal. Mass balance flow analyses indicated that biodegradation (99.15 % for PWWTP1 and 99.51 % for PWWTP2) was the principle mechanism for removing VCM, while the contribution of sorption by sludge for both PWWTPs was negligible. However, the results of the environmental risk assessment of VCM in the effluents showed that the maximum trigger quotient values were much higher than 1 in both PWWTPs, indicating the non-negligible environmental and health risks. This is the first report of the fate and risks of VCM in pharmaceutical wastewater, and underscores the importance of PWWTPs as antibiotic pollution sources, even though wastewater management appeared efficient.
万古霉素（VCM）是一种抗生素，在医学上被称为对抗细菌的最后一道防线。本研究在中国东部的两家制药废水处理厂（PWWTP）的各个处理单元中研究了 VCM 的去除和归宿。VCM 存在于两个 PWWTP 的所有废水和污泥样品中。经过处理程序（PWWTP1 的移动床生物膜反应器技术和 PWWTP2 的改良厌氧-缺氧-好氧技术）后，总去除效率高达 99%，对应于两个数量级的进水浓度降低在两个 PWWTP 中。好氧池是 VCM 去除的主要场所。质量平衡流分析表明，生物降解（PWWTP1 为 99.15%，PWWTP2 为 99.51%）是去除 VCM 的主要机制，而两个 PWWTP 的污泥吸附贡献可以忽略不计。然而，废水中 VCM 的环境风险评估结果表明，两个 PWWTP 的最大触发商数值都远高于 1，表明存在不可忽视的环境和健康风险。这是关于制药废水中 VCM 的命运和风险的首次报告，强调了即使废水管理似乎有效，PWWTP 也是抗生素污染的重要来源。
