Distribution and removal of antibiotic resistance genes during anaerobic sludge digestion with alkaline, thermal hydrolysis and ultrasonic pretreatments
Received date: 29 Jan 2019
Revised date: 05 May 2019
Accepted date: 10 May 2019
Published date: 15 Jun 2019
Copyright
Sludge digestion is critical to control the spread of ARGs from wastewater to soil. Fate of ARGs in three pretreatment-AD processes was investigated. UP was more efficient for ARGs removal than AP and THP in pretreatment-AD process. The total ARGs concentration showed significant correlation with 16S rRNA gene. The bacteria carrying ARGs could be mainly affiliated with Proteobacteria.
Sewage sludge in the wastewater treatment plants contains considerable amount of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). A few studies have reported that anaerobic digestion (AD) could successfully remove some ARGs from sewage sludge, but information on the fate of ARGs in sludge pretreatment-AD process is still very limited. In this study, three sludge pretreatment methods, including alkaline, thermal hydrolysis and ultrasonic pretreatments, were compared to investigate the distribution and removal of ARGs in the sludge pretreatment-AD process. Results showed that the ARGs removal efficiency of AD itself was approximately 50.77%, and if these three sludge pretreatments were applied, the total ARGs removal efficiency of the whole pretreatment-AD process could be improved up to 52.50%–75.07%. The ultrasonic pretreatment was more efficient than alkaline and thermal hydrolysis pretreatments. Although thermal hydrolysis reduced ARGs obviously, the total ARGs rebounded considerably after inoculation and were only removed slightly in the subsequent AD process. Furthermore, it was found that the total ARGs concentration significantly correlated with the amount of 16S rRNA gene during the pretreatment and AD processes, and the bacteria carrying ARGs could be mainly affiliated with Proteobacteria.
Mengli Wang , Ruying Li , Qing Zhao . Distribution and removal of antibiotic resistance genes during anaerobic sludge digestion with alkaline, thermal hydrolysis and ultrasonic pretreatments[J]. Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering, 2019 , 13(3) : 43 . DOI: 10.1007/s11783-019-1127-2
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