Effect of aged biochar after microbial fermentation on antibiotics removal: Key roles of microplastics and environmentally persistent free radicals
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Updated: Aug 9, 2025

Physical, Chemical and Biological Characterization of Six Biochars Produced for the Remediation of Contaminated Sites
Published on: November 28, 2014
Yanzhuo Zhang1, Rui He1, Jing Zhao1
1School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Key Laboratory for Yellow River and Huai River Water Environmental and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Control, International Joint Laboratory on Key Techniques in Water Treatment, Xinxiang, Henan 453007, PR China.
Abstract:
For the first time, biochar was prepared by changing the polystyrene (PS) content in sludge, and the efficiency of antibiotics removal by biochar was evaluated after fermentation aging. Fermentation aging affects the efficiency of antibiotics removal by reducing the specific surface area and active sites of biochar. The antibiotics removal efficiency of different types of biochar after aging decreased by 5.95%-13.59%. Owing to the biotoxicity of biochar, the relative abundance of most communities decreased during fermentation, whereas Anaerolineae still increased (14.29% to 33.05% or 33.02%). However, controlled experiments confirmed that biochar was much less toxic to Scenedesmus obliquus than to antibiotics, with concentrations of 11.09 × 105 cells/mL and 0.188 × 105 cells/mL, respectively. With the positive effect of environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) considered, increasing the PS content in sludge facilitated the removal of antibiotics by biochar. This study assesses the stability of biochar in removing antibiotics after long-term microbial aging.
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