Occurrence of veterinary antibiotics in struvite recovery from swine wastewater by using a fluidized bed

Recovering phosphorus from livestock wastewater has gained extensive attention. The residue of veterinary antibiotics in the wastewater may be present in the recovered products, thereby posing pharmacological threats to the agricultural planting and human health. This study investigated antibiotic occurrence in the struvite particles recovered from swine wastewater by using a fluidized bed. Results revealed that tetracyclines possessed significant residues in the struvite granules, with the values ranging from 195.2 mu g.kg(-1) to 1995.0 mu g.kg(-1). As for fluoroquinolones, their concentrations varied from 0.4 mu g.kg(-1) to 1104.0 mu g.kg(-1). Struvite particles were of various sizes and shapes and displayed different antibiotic adsorption capacities. The data also showed that the smaller granules contained much more antibiotics than the larger ones, indicating that the fluidized granulation process of struvite crystals plays an important role on the accumulation of antibiotics. For tetracyclines, organic matters and struvite adsorption exerted significant impacts on tetracyclines migration. The outcomes underscore the need to consider the residues of antibiotics in resource recovery from wastewater because they exert pharmacological impacts on the utilization of recovered products. (C) Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018.