In the modern society, the lack of water is one of environmental problems in the world. The effluent from waste water treatment plant(WWTP) is shown a replacement water for lacking water phenomenon. But, if the effluent will be used for water resources in earnest, it should be considered micro-pollutants which is not considered for river to be a replacement water. micro-pollutants in effluent from WWTP were started to study in 2000. In our contry, the study of micro-pollutants is activated recently(ministry of environment, 2003). However, most of studies were about a movement of chemical micro-pollutants in evrionment. There is a shortage of studies of biological micro-pollutants. For example, the antibiotic resistance gene(ARG) is classed as a part of micro-pollutants. If the ARG is existed in plasmid, it can transfer to other micro-organism. The transferation of ARG can make a spreading antibiotic resistance in environmental condition(Levy, 2004). In other words, the antibiotic resistances which is not controled in WWTP effluent is diffused to water system and the water system will transfer an ARG to every living cultures include human by water and aerosol shapes. It can threat to public health. According to pre studies, antibiotic resistance can be removed a little while running process of WWTP(Kim et al, 2010). So, the disinfection process needs to control antibiotic resistance bacteria(ARB) and antibiotic resistance gene(ARG) after WWTP process.
In this study, three different disinfection techniques were compared to control antibiotic resistance bacteria and antibiotic resistance gene which are one of biological micro-polluatnts. Also, it is studied about affecting factors to ozonation in lab-scale reactor. As a results, chlorination disinfected technique is shown 83% disinfection efficiency of ARB(E.coli/DH 5a) removal and electron beem and ozonation disinfected techniques were 99% disinfection efficiency of ARB(E.coli/DH 5a) removal. Those disinfection efficiencies were compared by dose what real disinfection process used. And it showed that electron beam and ozonation techniques were better disinfection process for removing pB10 plasmid classified biological micro-pollutant than chloriantion techniques. But it needs more dose for removing ARG than removing ARB. As a results of putting affecting factors(pH, Suspended Solid, Humic acid) into ozonation reactor, pH and suspended solids goes down the survival rate of ARB also decreased. This pattern was also observed in the ARG transfer and plasmid reduction. However, better antibiotic resistance removal (ARB, ARG transfer, and plasmid reductions) was observed at higher humic acid concentrations. From previous studies, It is well known fact that the pH is affecting the disinfection capacity. And suspended solid in wastewater could reduce the disinfection capacity. Ozone reacts quickly with humic substances to produce oxygenated byproducts of low molecular weight which generally are more easily biodegradable, polar and hydrophilic than their precursors.
Although several studies have been conducted for the antibiotic resistance removal by disinfection process, little study has been conducted for evaluatingthe antibiotic resistant gene transfer and gene removal as well as ARB with comprehensive manners as our study. In addition, factors which could make an impact on the removal of ARG transfer and genes are less. There are three major outcomes in this study. It needs more disinfection to remove ARG and control ARG transfer than ARB removal. Also factors for ozone efficiencies will need to study an ozone process adapted running wastewater-treatment plants.