Review of biological treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater containing antibiotics

Antibiotics, as an important pharmaceutical classification, have many applications in human life. They are used to increase the public health and quality of life. One of the serious environmental issues that pharmaceutical wastes may cause is the large amounts of antibiotics in them. Due to the range of use of antibiotics, the presence of this classification of drugs in wastewater is inevitable. Due to the increase in their consumption and their low metabolic levels, antibiotics enter the wastewater in different ways and this issue is not specifically related to antibiotics. According to numerous reports of the World Health Organization (WHO), the drugs in the wastewater, due to their accumulation, will create many risks for the environment and human health. Considering these destructive effects of antibiotics in wastewater, one of the important studies in this field is about the complete removal of this classification of pharmaceutical substances from wastewater. One of the wastewater treatment methods, which is one of the combined treatment stages, is the biological treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater. The most common biological treatment methods are activated sludge process and membrane bioreactors (MBR). Biological treatment is used as a complement to other stages of pharmaceutical wastewater treatment, including physical and chemical treatment. Therefore, in order to complete the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater with high efficiency, it is necessary to perform all three stages of treatment. These methods are used in different refineries and in this article, the introduction of these two methods and their advantages and disadvantages have been discussed. Also, the classification of antibiotics, the effects of MBR and activated sludge methods on the removal of antibiotic pollutants and the risks of these antibiotics have been discussed.

Keywords:

Antibiotics , Biological treatment , MBR , Activated sludge , Pharmaceutical wastes