Fate and transport of evolving antibiotics and their removal using novel bio-oxidation technologies

据估计，2015年加拿大市政污水厂(为2500万加拿大人提供服务)产生了170亿升/天的城市废水78万干吨污泥/生物固体。加拿大牲畜每年还消耗超过160万公斤的抗生素，其中约90%的抗生素没有在动物的肠道中完全吸收，导致它们释放到环境中。在过去的十年里，美国食品和药物管理局批准了10种新的抗生素药物，以规避多重药物/抗生素耐药性，但它们在环境中的当前浓度和毒性尚未得到研究。事实上，对加拿大公民来说，抗生素耐药性造成的成本可能高达数百亿美元。这是一个严重的问题，因为抗生素的发现没有一条与之相匹配的平行路径来研究其对环境的影响，这些影响随着时间的推移而加剧。在拟议的研究中，两种不同的抗生素类别：旧的(2000年前)和最近(2000年后)批准的第三代抗生素，如喹诺酮类药物[氧氟沙星(旧)和吉莫沙星(新)]和碳青霉烯类[亚胺培南(旧的)和比亚培南(新的)]已被选择来评估它们的浓度，它们的毒性和现有污水处理厂治疗它们的效率。同样，建议开发高效、便携和改装的医院污水处理系统，以最大限度地减少抗生素残留物排放到污水处理厂。因此，拟议的研究计划将包括六个部分：1)表征、质量平衡和由两个硕士学位论文执行的分析方法的发展。对于两类抗生素；2)相互作用-与抗生素-金属(不同氧化状态)、抗生素-腐植酸-金属、抗生素-抗生素有关的效果研究。抗生素-盐(氯化物)在不同的pH、温度和离子强度下，由两个博士进行；3)两个博士进行。将致力于先进的混合生物氧化处理方法，包括生物启发、微生物、酶、超声-过硫酸盐和纳米复合技术；4)两个M.Sc。学生将使用酵母雌激素活性/雄激素活性分析并与来自不同分类和功能组的代表性物种一起进行生态毒理学评估；5)将由理科硕士学生针对废水和医院污水流开发从目标2获得的最佳执行技术的原型；6)由理科硕士领导。学生将专注于研究废水处理部门的经济学，并进一步开发一个用于技术和经济评估的软件包，使其能够在去除抗生素和其他类似新出现的污染物的同时评估成本和运营收入。HQP将接受生物化学、环境工程、分析化学和微生物学方面的良好培训，并将为在市政、公共和私营部门的职业生涯做好准备。

Estimated 17 billion litre/day of municipal wastewater 780,000 dry tonnes of sludge/biosolids were generated in 2015 from Canadian municipal wastewater plants (serving 25 million Canadians). The Canadian livestock also consume more than 1.6 million kilograms of antibiotics every year, and about 90% of these antibiotics are not entirely absorbed in the intestine of animals, resulting in their release to the environment. For the last decade, the Food and Drug Administration approved 10 new antibiotic drugs to circumvent multidrug/antibiotic resistance, but their current concentrations and toxicity in the environment has not been explored. In fact, the costs due to the antibiotic resistance can run into tens of billions of dollars for the Canadian citizens. This is a serious concern, as antibiotic discovery does not have a matching parallel path of study of their environmental effects which are exacerbated over time. In the proposed research, two different antibiotic classes: old (before 2000) and recently (after 2000) approved 3rd generation antibiotics, such as quinolones [ofloxacin (old) and gemofloxacin (new)] and carbapenems [imipenem (old) and biapenem (new)] have been selected to evaluate their concentrations, their toxicity and efficiency of current WWTPs to treat them. Likewise, the possibility of developing efficient, portable and retrofit systems for hospital effluents is proposed to minimize the release of the antibiotics residuals into the WWTPs. The proposed research program hence will comprise six components: 1) characterization, mass balance and development of the analytical methods performed by two M.Scs. for the two classes of antibiotics; 2) interactions-effects studies related to the antibiotics-metals (different oxidation states), antibiotics-humic acids-metals, antibiotics-antibiotics. antibiotics-salts (chlorides) at different pH, temperature, and ionic strength carried out by 2 Ph.Ds; 3) Two Ph.Ds. will work on advanced hybrid bio-oxidation treatment methods, comprising bioinspired, microbial, enzymatic, ultrasonication-persulfate and nanocomposite technologies; 4) Two M.Sc. student will perform ecotoxicological assessment using yeast estrogenicity/androgenicity assays and with representative species from different taxonomic and functional groups; 5) Prototype will be developed for the best performing technologies obtained from objective 2 by a M.Sc student for wastewater and hospital effluent streams and; 6) led by an M.Sc. student, will focus on the study of the economics of the wastewater treatment sector and further development of a software package for technical and economic evaluation enabling the assessment of the costs and operating revenues while removing antibiotics and other similar emerging contaminants. The HQP will be well trained in biochemistry, environmental engineering, analytical chemistry and microbiology and will be prepared for careers in municipal, public and private sector.