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Investigation of reduction in risk from antibiotic resistance genes in laboratory wastewater by using O3, ultrasound, and autoclaving

Biological laboratory wastewater containing both antibiotic‐resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotics is a potential source of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Thus, we determined the efficacy of autoclaving, a common disinfection method, in eliminating 5 ARGs (sul1, sul2, tetW, tetM, amp) and the integrase‐encoding gene intI1 from laboratory wastewater. Autoclaving (15 min, 121°C) inactivated all bacteria including ARB, whereas ARGs persisted in the wastewater with limited reduction even after 60 min of treatment. Ozonation (O3), ultrasound (US), O3/US, and autoclaving followed by O3 were investigated for their ability to reduce ARGs in laboratory wastewater. With O3 and O3/US, the reduction rate ranged from 5.44 to 7.13 log for all ARGs investigated. Wastewater treatment with US alone did not reduce ARGs under the present experimental conditions (150 W, 53 kHz). Among the four treatments, autoclaving followed by O3 treatment showed the highest reduction rates in the shortest time; however, further optimization and investigation are needed for the advanced treatment of bio‐laboratory wastewater. Overall, this study provides novel insights into ARG sources and demonstrates that advanced oxidation methods can be useful to optimize laboratory wastewater treatment for ARG inactivation.