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

估计170亿升/天的城市废水2015年，加拿大城市废水处理厂产生了78万干吨污泥/生物固体（为2500万加拿大人服务）。加拿大牲畜每年消耗超过160万公斤的抗生素，其中约90%的抗生素在动物的肠道中没有完全吸收，导致它们释放到环境中。在过去的十年中，美国食品和药物管理局批准了10种新的抗生素药物，以避免多药/抗生素耐药性，但它们目前在环境中的浓度和毒性尚未得到研究。事实上，抗生素耐药性给加拿大公民带来的损失可能高达数百亿美元。这是一个严重的问题，因为抗生素的发现并没有一个匹配的平行路径来研究它们的环境影响，这些影响会随着时间的推移而加剧。在拟议的研究中，选择了两种不同的抗生素类别：旧的（2000年之前）和最近（2000年之后）批准的第三代抗生素，如喹诺酮类[氧氟沙星（旧）和吉氟沙星（新）]和碳青霉烯类[亚胺培南（旧）和比阿培南（新）]，以评估其浓度，毒性和当前污水处理厂处理它们的效率。同样，开发有效的，便携式和改造系统的医院污水的可能性，建议尽量减少释放到污水处理厂的抗生素残留物。因此，拟议的研究计划将包括六个组成部分：1）表征，质量平衡和开发的分析方法进行的两个硕士。2）与抗生素-金属（不同氧化态）、抗生素-腐殖酸-金属、抗生素-抗生素相关的相互作用-效应研究。由2名博士在不同pH值、温度和离子强度下进行的无机盐（氯化物）; 3）2名博士。将研究先进的混合生物氧化处理方法，包括生物启发，微生物，酶，超声波过硫酸盐和纳米复合材料技术; 4）两名硕士学生将使用酵母雌激素/雄激素测定和来自不同分类和功能组的代表性物种进行生态毒理学评估;（5）将由一名理科硕士学生为从目标2中获得的用于废水和医院污水流的最佳性能技术开发原型; 6）由一名理学硕士学生领导，将专注于研究废水处理行业的经济学，并进一步开发用于技术和经济评估的软件包，以便在去除抗生素和其他类似新兴污染物的同时评估成本和运营收入。HQP将在生物化学，环境工程，分析化学和微生物学方面接受良好的培训，并将为市政，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.