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Fluorescence quenching effects of antibiotics on the main components of dissolved organic matter

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Abstract

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) in wastewater can be characterized using fluorescence excitation-emission matrix and parallel factor (EEM-PARAFAC) analysis. Wastewater from animal farms or pharmaceutical plants usually contains high concentration of antibiotics. In this study, the quenching effect of antibiotics on the typical components of DOM was explored using fluorescence EEM-PARAFAC analysis. Four antibiotics (roxarsone, sulfaquinoxaline sodium, oxytetracycline, and erythromycin) at the concentration of 0.5∼4.0 mg/L and three typical components of DOM (tyrosine, tryptophan, and humic acid) were selected. Fluorescence quenching effects were observed with the addition of antibiotics. Among these four antibiotics, roxarsone (2.9∼20.2 %), sulfaquinoxaline sodium (0∼32.0 %), and oxytetracycline (0∼41.8 %) led to a stronger quenching effect than erythromycin (0∼8.0 %). From the side of DOM, tyrosine and tryptophan (0.5∼41.8 %) exhibited a similar quenching effect, but they were higher than humic acids (0∼20.2 %) at the same concentration of antibiotics. For humic acid, a significant quenching effect was observed only with the addition of roxarsone. This might be the first report about the fluorescence quenching effect caused by antibiotics. The results from this study confirmed the interference of antibiotics on the fluorescence intensity of the main components of DOM and highlighted the importance of correcting fluorescence data in the wastewater containing antibiotics.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partly supported by the Key Special Program on the S&T for the Pollution Control (2012ZX07103-001), the NSFC (51578205, 51538012, 51378017, 51479046).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China

    Peng-Fei Yan, Zhen-Hu Hu & Li Liu

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Han-Qing Yu

  3. School of Environment and Energy Engineering, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Wei-Hua Li

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  1. Peng-Fei Yan
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Correspondence to Zhen-Hu Hu.

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Responsible editor: Céline Guéguen

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Yan, PF., Hu, ZH., Yu, HQ. et al. Fluorescence quenching effects of antibiotics on the main components of dissolved organic matter. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 5667–5675 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5800-0

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