Research Advances in the Distribution, Migration, Transformation, and Removal of Antibiotics in Aquatic Ecosystems

Abstract

Antibiotics are widely used in medicine, livestock and other fields, leading to increasingly prominent enrichment, transformation and potential ecological risks in the global water environment. This poses a serious threat to ecological balance and public health, making the development of efficient and economical treatment technologies a research hotspot for addressing water antibiotic pollution. This paper systematically analyzes the current status of global water antibiotic pollution, migration and transformation characteristics, and research progress in removal technologies. We summarize the main types of antibiotics in water and their spatial distribution across different global water bodies, explore their primary entry pathways into the water environment, and elaborate on transformation behaviors such as migration, adsorption and degradation, as well as residual risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health. We also focus on existing artificial removal technologies, including physical methods like adsorption and membrane separation, chemical methods centered on advanced oxidation, and biological methods utilizing microbial metabolism. And we discuss emerging technologies such as microbial fuel cells and biocatalyst remediation, along with hybrid processes, regarding their development status and application potential. Finally, we outline key challenges in practical application of current technologies, provide an outlook on future research directions and engineering applications, aiming to offer references for water antibiotic pollution control.