TY - JOUR

T1 - Ultimate Biodegradation and Elimination of Antibiotics in Inherent Tests

AU - Gartiser, Stefan

AU - Urich, Elke

AU - Alexy, Radka

AU - Kümmerer, Klaus

N1 - Funding Information: We kindly acknowledge the financial support of the investigations by the German Environmental Protection Agency (UBA, Research Grant No. 298 63 722, see Alexy et al., 2003 ).

PY - 2007/3/1

Y1 - 2007/3/1

N2 - The biodegradation and elimination of antibiotics in municipal wastewater treatment plants is of particular concern because sewage is the main exposure route for antibiotics used in human medicine. The inherent biodegradability of 17 antibiotics was determined in a combined test design based on the Zahn-Wellens test (OECD 302 B, 1992) and the CO2-evolution test (OECD 301 B, 1992). CO2 Evolution test (Modified Sturm test). OECD Guideline for the Testing of Chemicals, Paris). Only benzylpenicillin sodium salt (Penicillin G) proved to be ultimately biodegradable, reaching ThCO2 degradation extents of 78-87%. Among the others, only amoxicillin, imipenem and nystatin showed certain ultimate biodegradation in few of the parallel flasks and can be regarded as partially biodegradable with formation of stable metabolites. The DOC-elimination of tetracycline-HCl showed a typical degradation curve starting with 18% and reaching the plateau phase at 80% after 21 days. Nevertheless, the CO2-evolution measured in parallel did not support the data, indicating that the time needed for reaching the adsorption equilibrium was underestimated. Several other antibiotics showed considerable DOC-elimination in the inherent test while only minor incidences of ultimate biodegradation were observed. The combination of CO2-evolution and DOC-elimination is a suitable instrument for assessing the behaviour of chemicals within one test. It enables one to assess both inherent ultimate biodegradability and DOC-elimination by sorption. The applicability of the test is limited to substances with a moderate toxicity. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

AB - The biodegradation and elimination of antibiotics in municipal wastewater treatment plants is of particular concern because sewage is the main exposure route for antibiotics used in human medicine. The inherent biodegradability of 17 antibiotics was determined in a combined test design based on the Zahn-Wellens test (OECD 302 B, 1992) and the CO2-evolution test (OECD 301 B, 1992). CO2 Evolution test (Modified Sturm test). OECD Guideline for the Testing of Chemicals, Paris). Only benzylpenicillin sodium salt (Penicillin G) proved to be ultimately biodegradable, reaching ThCO2 degradation extents of 78-87%. Among the others, only amoxicillin, imipenem and nystatin showed certain ultimate biodegradation in few of the parallel flasks and can be regarded as partially biodegradable with formation of stable metabolites. The DOC-elimination of tetracycline-HCl showed a typical degradation curve starting with 18% and reaching the plateau phase at 80% after 21 days. Nevertheless, the CO2-evolution measured in parallel did not support the data, indicating that the time needed for reaching the adsorption equilibrium was underestimated. Several other antibiotics showed considerable DOC-elimination in the inherent test while only minor incidences of ultimate biodegradation were observed. The combination of CO2-evolution and DOC-elimination is a suitable instrument for assessing the behaviour of chemicals within one test. It enables one to assess both inherent ultimate biodegradability and DOC-elimination by sorption. The applicability of the test is limited to substances with a moderate toxicity. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

KW - Antibiotics

KW - Biodegradability

KW - Effluent

KW - Elimination

KW - Inherent biodegradability

KW - Chemistry

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33846226422&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/efd03c07-dd7c-3c54-9ecb-6d93f56010a6/

U2 - 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2006.08.038

DO - 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2006.08.038

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 67

SP - 604

EP - 613

JO - Chemosphere

JF - Chemosphere

SN - 0045-6535

IS - 3

ER -