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[Display omitted] • Synergistic electroporation/chlorination was constructed to promote i-ARG removal. • DC-EP/Cl 2 promoted the damage of ARB cells for i-ARG leakage and removal. • DC-EP/Cl 2 decreased significantly the HGT frequency than individual treatment. • DC-EP/Cl 2 had much lower energy consumption for i-ARG removal in tap water. • DC-EP/Cl 2 exhibited excellent stability of i-ARG removal within 7-day operation. Conventional chlorination (Cl 2) is inefficient to eliminate intracellular antibiotic resistance genes (i-ARGs) of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) due to the chlorine permeation barrier and oxidative competition of cell wall/membrane. Herein, we proposed an efficient strategy by constructing synergistic nanowire-induced electroporation (DC-EP) and Cl 2 (DC-EP/Cl 2) with H 2 -reduced TiO 2 nanowire (TiO x NW) electrodes, attempting to promote i-ARG removal via DC-EP-induced cell damage for chlorine permeation and i-ARG leakage. DC-EP/Cl 2 (∼3.7 log and ∼ 60.5 J/L/log) exhibited excellent synergistic effects for ARB inactivation (Escherichia coli) and i-ARG removal (tet(W) , aac(3)-II , and bla TEM – 1), which achieved much larger i-ARG removal and lower energy consumption than the individual 1.5 V-DC-EP (∼0.05 log) and 10 mg/L-Cl 2 (∼0.5 log and ∼ 262.0 J/L/log). Analyses of i-ARG/e-ARG abundances, bacterial cell integrity, and cell morphology indicated that DC-EP-induced cell pores provided channels of chlorine permeation, which was accompanied with oxidative enlargement of cell pores for i-ARG leakage and subsequent degradation. DC-EP/Cl 2 exhibited 15–90 times lower frequency of horizontal gene transfer than the individual Cl 2 disinfection. The TiO x NW-based DC-EP/Cl 2 exhibited excellent stability of i-ARG removal (undetectable ARG abundance and ∼ 20.3 J/L/log) for treating 103 CFU/mL ARB-contaminated tap water within 7-day continuous operation, suggesting its great application potential to alleviate ARG dissemination risk for drinking water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]