Organic diffusive gradients in thin films (o-DGT) for determining environmental behaviors of antibiotics: A review

• Published in: Journal of hazardous materials 2023-10, Vol.459, p.132279-132279, Article 132279
• Main Authors: Liang, Yixuan, Li, Hanbing, Li, Sumei, Chen, Sha
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: agarose; antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; bioavailability; carbon; DGT; Environmental behavior; gels; humans; medicine; Sediment; Soil; Water
• ISSN: 0304-3894; 1873-3336
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2023.132279

Antibiotics are recognized as effective medicine that has been extensively used in human and veterinary. Since the rate of releasing into the environment is stronger than the rate of elimination, antibiotics are regarded as persistent or “pseudo-persistent” organic compounds that result in the development of microbial antibiotic resistance. Therefore, assessment for their ecological risks to the environment are essential. Diffusive gradients in thin films for organic compounds (o-DGT) have been adapted to investigate the environmental behaviors of antibiotics. Currently, more than 20 compounds have been tested by o-DGT in waters and soil environments. In this review, we explained the theoretical reason that o-DGT is feasible to determine the labile fraction of antibiotics in different environmental media. The most used agarose diffusive gel, and various binding agents such as resin, porous carbon and nano-scale materials have been compared to optimize the sampling of antibiotics by o-DGT. Results of deploying o-DGT devices in waters and soils from previous studies were discussed to understand the bioavailability and dynamic transport of antibiotics. Also, we provided the feasibility analysis of using o-DGT in sediments for antibiotics measurements, which is required to be carried out in future studies. To have a deep view on the development of o-DGT, its technical limitations and viable improvements were summarized in this study for further applications on antibiotics research. [Display omitted] •Provide the principle of using DGT measure the labile fractions of antibiotics.•Compared gels used in previous studies to propose an optimized tool.•Discussed the application of DGT in determining the behaviors of antibiotics.•Open up possible directions for o-DGT developments.