Adsorption and degradation of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole in an agricultural soil system under an anaerobic condition: Kinetics and environmental risks

Sulfonamides, one of the commonest antibiotics, were widely used on humans and livestock to control pathema and bacterial infections resulting in further environmental risks. The present study evaluated the adsorption and degradation of sulfadiazine (SDZ) and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) in an agricultural soil system under an anaerobic condition. Low sorption coefficients (Kd, 1.22 L kg−1 for SDZ and 1.23 L kg−1 for SMX) obtained from Freundlich isotherms experiment indicated that poor sorption of both antibiotics may pose a high risk to environment due to their high mobility and possibility of entering surface and ground water. Degradation occurred at a lower rate under the anaerobic environment, where both two antibiotics had higher persistence in sterile and non-sterile soils with degradation ratio <75% and DT50 > 20 d. Additionally, the addition of manure slightly increased degradation rates of SDZ and SMX, but there were no significant differences between single and repeated manure application at a later stage (p > 0.05), which suggested that the degradation was affected by both biotic and abiotic factors. Degradation rates would be slower at a higher concentration, indicating that degradation kinetics of SDZ and SMX were dependent on initial concentrations. During the degradation period, the antibiotics removal may change temperature, pH, sulfate and nitrate in soil, which suggested that the variation of antibiotics concentrations was related to the changes of soil physicochemical properties. An equation was proposed to elucidate the link between adsorption and degradation under different conditions, and to predict potential environmental risks of antibiotics.