The removal of trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole by a high infiltration rate artificial composite soil treatment system

Abstract

Artificial composite soil treatment system with the high infiltration rate (1.394 m·d^-1) had a good removal efficiency of TMP (80%–90%) and SMX (60%–70%).

The removal mechanism of TMP and SMX was mainly sorption and was related with hydrogeochemical process.

Sulfamethoxzole (SMX) and trimethoprim (TMP), two combined-using sulfonamide antibiotics, have gained increasing attention in the surface water, groundwater and the drinking water because of the ecological risk. The removal of TMP and SMX by artificial composite soil treatment system (ACST) with different infiltration rates was systematically investigated using K⁺, Na⁺, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺ hydrogeochemical indexes. Batch experiments showed that the sorption onto the low-cost and commercially available clay ceramsites was effective for the removal of SMX and TMP from water. The column with more silty clay at high infiltration rate (1.394 m·d⁻¹) had removal rates of 80% to 90% for TMP and 60% to 70% for SMX. High SMX and TMP removal rates had a higher effluent concentration of K⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ and had a lower effluent Na⁺ concentration. Removal was strongly related to sorption. The results showed that the removal of SMX and TMP was related to hydrogeochemical processes. In this study, ACST is determined to be applicable to the drinking water plants.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Trimethoprim / Sulfamethoxazole / Artificial composite soil treatment / Hydrogeochemical processes / Ion exchange

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Beijing Natural Science Foundation (J150004), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51408335) and Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of China (41130637) for the financial support of this work.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-017-0920-z and is accessible for authorized users.

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