Remediation of wastewater contaminated by antibiotics. A review

The rising presence of antibiotics in the environment induces the production of resistant genes and thus threatens animal health because there are actually few alternative antibiotics. Here, we review recent trends on antibiotic research in water. For that, we analyzed countries, institutes, journals and keywords of 5420 articles on antibiotics in water or wastewater published between 2000 and 2017. Findings show that China is the first contributor and that the USA has the highest h-index of 104. The major removal techniques are adsorption, photolysis and photocatalysis, biodegradation, ozonation and electrochemical oxidation. New materials and technologies, such as ionizing beam, are actually studied to improve efficiency and decrease cost. Conversion of wastewater into fuels such as H 2 and methane is also a current research topic.