Removal of tetracycline and ciprofloxacin from wastewater by vetiver grass ( Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty) as a
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Removal of tetracycline and ciprofloxacin from wastewater by vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty) as a function of nutrient concentrations Saumik Panja 1 & Dibyendu Sarkar 1
&
Rupali Datta 2
Received: 16 January 2020 / Accepted: 15 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Antibiotics have been widely used not only for the treatment and prevention of human infectious diseases but also to promote growth and prevent infections in farm animals. These antibiotics enter the environment via wastewater treatment plants, most of which cannot remove them. In addition to antibiotics, nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) also create major environmental pollution problems in surface water. Previously, we reported that vetiver grass [Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty] successfully removed antibiotics from secondary wastewater effluent. In this study, our objective was to evaluate the potential of vetiver grass to remove two antibiotics, ciprofloxacin (CIP) and tetracycline (TTC), from wastewater in the presence of high N and P. Our results show that vetiver grass significantly (p < 0.05) removed antibiotics (60–94% CIP and 89–100% TTC) and nutrients (78–89% N and 71–97% P) from the secondary wastewater effluent. The removal of antibiotics dropped with increasing nutrient concentrations. The removal efficiency was mainly affected by the presence of N rather than P in the secondary wastewater effluent. The presence of CIP induced more stress on vetiver grass compared to TTC. Vetiver also removed total organic carbon (48–73%) and chemical oxygen demand (73–82%), but their removal was also affected by the nutrient content in the secondary wastewater effluent. Keywords Antibiotic . Wastewater . Nutrients . Vetiver . Phytoremediation
Introduction The presence of pharmaceutical compounds in aquatic and terrestrial environments has raised public concern over the past few decades (Githinji et al. 2011). Numerous studies have reported the fate and transportation of these biologically active molecules in the environment (Kümmerer 2009a; Kümmerer 2009b). Several studies have also revealed the influence of Responsible editor: Elena Maestri Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09762-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Dibyendu Sarkar [email protected] 1
Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA
2
Department of Biological Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA
some pharmaceutical compounds on the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (Aydin et al. 2015). The presence of antibiotics in surface water and soil places selective pressure on microbial communities contributing to the development of resistant microorganisms. The majority of antibiotic resistance mechanisms thus developed can be transmitted in other bacteria in the environment through horizo
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