Tetracycline: production, waste treatment and environmental impact assessment

Abstract

The frequent occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment requires an assessment of their environmental impact and their negative effects in humans. Among the drugs with high harmful potential to the environment are the antibiotics that reach the environment not only, as may be expected, through the effluents from chemical and pharmaceutical industries, but mainly through the sewage and livestock; because around 25 to 75% of the ingested drugs are excreted in unchanged form after the passage through the Gastro-Intestinal Tract. Tetracycline has high world consumption, representing a human consumption of about 23 kg/day in Brazil in 2007. At the moment, researches are being made to develop new tetracycline that incorporate heavy metals (Hg, Cd, Re, Pt, Pd) to their structures in order to increase their bactericidal effect. The conventional wastewater treatment plants are not able to degrade complex organic molecules to reduce their toxicity and improve their biodegradability. For this reason new technologies, i.e., the advanced oxidation processes, are being developed to handle this demand. The objectives of this study are to review the literature on the processes of obtaining tetracycline, presenting its waste treatment methods and evaluation of their environmental impact.Uniterms: Tetracyclines/production. Tetracyclines/waste/tratament. Tetracyclines/waste/environmental impact. Environmental contamination. Domestic sewage/treatment. Industrial wastewater/treatment. Advanced oxidation processes/wastewater treatment.A ocorrência frequente de fármacos no meio aquático exige a avaliação do seu impacto ambiental e seus efeitos negativos em seres humanos. Dentre os fármacos com maior potencial de impacto ambiental estão os antibióticos, que chegam ao meio ambiente através dos efluentes de indústrias químico-farmacêuticas e, principalmente, através de esgotos domésticos e criação de animais, visto que 25% a 75% dos fármacos são excretados em forma inalterada após passagem pelo Trato Gastrointestinal. Parcela significativa do consumo mundial dos antibióticos corresponde à classe das tetraciclinas, representando consumo humano de 23 kg/dia no Brasil, em 2007. Atualmente, há pesquisas de novas tetraciclinas que incorporam metais pesados (Hg, Cd, Re, Pt, Pd) às suas estruturas com o intuito de aumentar suas atividades bactericidas. As estações de tratamento de águas residuais convencionais não são capazes de degradar moléculas orgânicas complexas, diminuir a sua toxicidade e melhorar a sua biodegradabilidade. Por esta razão, as novas tecnologias, como, por exemplo, os processos oxidativos avançados, estão sendo desenvolvidos para lidar com esta demanda. Os objetivos deste trabalho são fazer uma revisão da literatura sobre os processos de obtenção de tetraciclinas, apresentar métodos de tratamento de seus resíduos e avaliar o seu impacto ambiental.

Oxytetracycline in intensive aquaculture: water quality during and after its administration, environmental fate, toxicity and bacterial resistance

“…; Borghi & Palma ). Photodegradation can occur by two main ways: directly (absorption of radiation by the compound) and indirectly (photosensitization by natural water constituents, such as DOM) (Borghi & Palma ). However, it is worth to notice that DOM can also have a filter effect, as it absorbs solar light, causing an inhibition of contaminant photodegradation.…”

“…). In fact, solar photodegradation can be affected by several factors, namely pH, composition and turbidity of water, season, latitude and own absorption spectrum of the compound (Kummerer ; Borghi & Palma ).…”

“…There are some relatively recent reviews on tetracycline antibiotics. Some of them are general and refer to their fate and environmental behaviour (Daghrir & Drogui ; Borghi & Palma ). However, there is a lack of information about the oxytetracycline antibiotic in the aquatic systems, namely in the aquaculture sector.…”

EVALUACIÓN DE RÍOS DEL VALLE DE CULIACÁN, MÉXICO, COMO RESERVORIOS DE SEROTIPOS DE Salmonella RESISTENTES A ANTIBIÓTICOS

“…Por ello, grandes cantidades de estos fármacos son liberados en aguas residuales municipales por excreción o eliminación (Lien et al 2016), y se han detectado en diferentes ambientes acuáticos como ríos (Zhang et al 2015), agua para acuacultura (Pham et al 2015), influentes y efluentes de plantas de tratamiento de aguas residuales (Rodríguez-Mozaz et al 2015) y principalmente en los efluentes de hospitales (CastroPastrana et al 2015). Por otro lado, se encontró una alta incidencia de cepas de Salmonella resistentes a tetraciclina, lo que podría estar relacionado con el amplio uso de este antibiótico para tratamiento humano, así como en actividades agrícolas y pecuarias (Borghi y Palma 2014). Además, se ha reportado que más del 70 % de este antibiótico es excretado después de la medicación, y que su alta hidrofobicidad y baja volatilidad, le permiten prevalecer por periodos prolongados en ambientes acuáticos (Daghrir y Drogui 2013).…”

Investigation of photoinduced polymerization of doxycycline-imprinted hydrogels: effect of template on initiator reactivity, conversion, and reaction rate

“…In the case of indirect degradation, strong oxidizing radicals are generated by natural components and these radicals react with drug molecules. 42 Jiao et al indicated that the positively charged tetracycline (TC + ) form of TC molecules substantially inhibited photolysis and, contrary to this, the TC 0 form encouraged photolysis. 43 Protonation states of the TC give information about the stability of the structure in media with different pH values.…”