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The contamination of microplastics and antibiotics in aquaculture wastewater: Their remediation technologies and interaction effects on their removal

Marine Pollution Bulletin 2026
Jibin Song, Yuan Liu, Shouqiang Zhao, Jiuming Sun, Zhongyang Li

Summary

This review paper found that tiny plastic particles (microplastics) and antibiotics in fish farm wastewater interact with each other in ways that make both pollutants harder to remove from water. The plastic bits can soak up antibiotics and change how they break down, while antibiotics can interfere with removing the plastics. This matters because both microplastics and antibiotic pollution can harm human health, so we need better cleanup methods that tackle both problems together.

Study Type Environmental

The pollution of microplastics and antibiotics in aquaculture wastewater is a major concern, while current studies focus more on the removal of antibiotics than microplastics and their interaction effects on their removal. This review summarized the contamination and the remediation technologies of antibiotics and microplastics in aquaculture wastewater as well as their interaction effects on their removal during the remediation processes, and prospected the future development and challenges of current technologies. Microplastics can alter the migration and removal rate of antibiotics due to the adsorption of antibiotics, conversely, antibiotics may compete adsorption sites or reactive oxygen species with microplastics, the coexistence of microplastics and antibiotics may affect the hydrolysis and the biotoxicity of antibiotics and therefore their biodegradation, but how these interactions affect the behavior of microplastics is rarely examined. The combined remediation technologies considering the interaction between microplastics and antibiotics may be the direction of future efforts.

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