Abstract

In order to mitigate the potential effects on the human health which are associated to the use of treated wastewater in agriculture, antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are required to be carefully monitored in wastewater reuse processes and their spread should be prevented by the development of efficient treatment technologies. Objective of this study was the assessment of ARGs reduction efficiencies of a novel technological treatment solution for agricultural reuse of municipal wastewaters. The proposed solution comprises an advanced biological treatment (Sequencing Batch Biofilter Granular Reactor, SBBGR), analysed both al laboratory and pilot scale,followed by sand filtration and two different disinfection final stages: ultraviolet light (UV) radiation and peracetic acid (PAA) treatments. By Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), the presence of 9 ARGs (ampC, mecA, ermB, sul1, sul2, tetA, tetO, tetW, vanA) were analysed and by quantitative PCR (qPCR) their removal was determined. The obtained results were compared to the reduction of total bacteria (16S rDNA gene) and of a faecal contamination indicator (Escherichia coli uidA gene). Only four of the analysed genes (ermB, sul1, sul2, tetA) were detected in raw wastewater and their abundance was estimated to be 3.4±0.7 x104 - 9.6±0.5 x109 and 1.0±0.3 x103 to 3.0±0.1 x107 gene copies/mL in raw and treated wastewaters, respectively. The results show that SBBGR technology is promising for the reduction of ARGs, achieving stable removal performance ranging from1.0±0.4 to 2.8±0.7 log units,which is comparable to or higher than that reported for conventional activatedsludge treatments. No reduction of the ARGs amount normalized to the total bacteria content (16S rDNA),was instead obtained, indicating that these genes are removed together with total bacteria and not specifically eliminated. Enhanced ARGs removalwas obtained by sand filtration,while no reductionwas achieved by both UV and PAA disinfection treatments tested in our study.

Autore Pugliese

• Di Iaconi Claudio

Tutti gli autori

• Luprano M.L.; De Sanctis M.; Del Moro G.; Di Iaconi C.; Lopez A.; Levantesi C.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Science of the total environment

Anno di pubblicazione

2016

ISSN

0048-9697

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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