Despite their common use in animal production the environmental fate of the veterinary sulfonamide antibiotics after excretion is only poorly understood. We performed irrigation experiments to investigate the transport of these substances with surface runoff on grassland. Liquid manure from pigs treated with sulfadimidine was spiked with sulfadiazine, sulfathiazole, the herbicide atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6-isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazine), and the conservative tracer bromide and spread onto eight plots. Four plots received the same amounts of the spiked substances in aqueous solution (controls). Apart from the application matrix we varied the time between application and irrigation. Manure increased the runoff volume up to six times compared with the controls. It seemed that manure enhanced the runoff by sealing the soil surface. On manured plots the relative antibiotic concentrations in runoff were higher than on the controls, reaching an average of 0.3% (sulfadiazine), 0.8% (sulfathiazole), and 1.4% (sulfadimidine) of the input concentrations after a 1-d contact time. The corresponding values on the controls were 0.16% for sulfadiazine and 0.08% for sulfathiazole. After 3 d, the maximum values on the manured plots were even higher, whereas they had fallen below the limit of quantification on the controls. As a consequence, the sulfonamide losses were 10 to 40 times larger on the manured plots. The relative mobility of the sulfonamides on the control plots followed the trend expected from their chromatographic separation but the opposite was found on the manured plots. Hence it is important to consider explicitly the physical and chemical effects of manure when assessing the environmental fate of sulfonamides.

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Anaerobic degradation of sludge amended with linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) was tested in a one stage continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) and a two stage reactor system consisting of a CSTR as first step and upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor as the second step. Anaerobic removal of LAS was only observed at the second step but not at the first step. Removal of LAS in the UASB reactors was approx. 80% where half was due to absorption and the other half was apparently due to biological removal as shown from the LAS mass balance. At the end of the experiment the reactors were spiked with 14C-LAS which resulted in 5.6% 14CO2 in the produced gas. Total mass balance of the radioactivity was however not achieved. In batch experiments it was found that LAS at concentrations higher than 50 mg/l is inhibitory for most microbial groups of the anaerobic process. Therefore, low initial LAS concentration is a prerequisite for successful LAS degradation. The results from the present study suggest that anaerobic degradation of LAS is possible in UASB reactors when the concentration of LAS is low enough to avoid inhibition of microorganisms active in the anaerobic process.

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