Recent development in the sustainable remediation of antibiotics: A review

Antibiotics are identified as an emerging contaminant due to their persistence in the environment. Antibiotics, due to their accumulation in freshwater sources and wastewater have become a pollutant of concern. Every year million tons of these emerging contaminants are discharged into the water bodies. Through, the feces and urine of humans and animals, the antibiotics and their metabolites enter the environment. Aquatic ecosystems are exposed to persistent pollutants as they escape the wastewater treatment process. Excessive usage of antibiotics has resulted in the generation of antibiotic-resistant genes and bacteria in the environment. To maintain the vitality of the environment, it becomes imperative to mitigate antibiotics and their toxic metabolites. To avoid the adverse consequences on the non-target organisms, their removal from the environment is vital. Various remediation methods such as conventional methods including ion exchange, and precipitation are used for antibiotics degradation, however, the efficacy of the traditional methods is limited due to the production of toxic sludge and the high cost of maintenance. Biological methods such as bioremediation and phytoremediation are sustainable strategies to eradicate antibiotics, hence used widely. There are many reviews on antibiotic bioremediation using microbes and phytoremediation of antibiotics. But not all antibiotics can be remediated using microorganisms, so there is a need for more sustainable removal methods and recent remediation strategies. In the present review, a web-based search for literature published between 2010 and 2022 is carried out. Previous studies reported that living organisms like bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants could be utilized for the degradation of antibiotics. But not all antibiotics could be degraded using bacteria, as bioremediation may get affected by many factors such as inoculum size, microbial strain, and the culture conditions. Therefore, recent remediation techniques such as the use of microbial fuel cells, biochar, and sawdust are used for the possible removal of antibiotics from the environment. For the sustainable elimination of recalcitrant antibiotics, combined processes seem to be a more efficient and permanent solution for bypassing the toxicity of antibiotics.