Analysis and prospects of strategies for the degradation of antibiotics and resistance genes in soil

Soil played an irreplaceable and important role in maintaining ecological balance, ensuring agricultural production. However, millions of tons of antibiotics were released directly or indirectly into the soil every year due to the large-scale production and use of antibiotic products. They not only expanded scope of pollution, exacerbated the level of pollution in the surrounding environment through interactions with other substances in soil, but also posed a threat to human health through contact, inhalation, and the food chain. Various remediation technologies must be developed to mitigate the harm caused by antibiotics and their toxic metabolites (penicillin might produce penicillanic acid with less stable but higher toxicity). Although existing traditional technologies, including physical, biological, and chemical methods, posed advantages like clear mechanisms, quick initial effects (75%, 68%, 85% within 0.08, 10-120, 0.08-0.125 days), and high technological maturity, they also had obvious limitations. Physical methods merely transfer pollutants without degrading them; biological methods were frequently constrained by concentration toxicity; whereas chemical methods typically incur prohibitive costs. There was an urgent need to develop integrated technology that was cost-effective, not limited by pollutants, and capable of full-process treatment. This paper systematically reviewed and compared the advantages, disadvantages, costs, applicable scenarios, and degradation efficiencies of various remediation technologies for soil antibiotic and antibiotic resistance gene (ARGs) pollution. This article filled the critical knowledge gap in the systematic evaluation and optimization of soil antibiotic remediation technologies by analyzing the bottlenecks of single physical, biological, and chemical methods and proposing a three-tier integrated strategy of “physical immobilization-biological transformation-chemical oxidation.” The proposed strategies of material innovation (such as adsorption catalysts) and process coupling (such as adsorption-biodegradation) provided a solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance for developing high-efficiency, low-cost, and complete degradation technologies. For example, the development of adsorption catalysts and the coupling of secondary process (adsorption-biodegradation) solve the problem of incomplete adsorption treatment while increasing the average degradation rate to 85%-97%. This work advanced the scientific understanding of soil antibiotic remediation and contributed to the development of sustainable solutions for soil environmental governance, ensuring agricultural production safety and safeguarding human health.