Occurrence of trace elements and antibiotics in manure-based fertilizers from the Zhejiang Province of China.

The occurrence of seven trace elements and forty three antibiotics was investigated in manure-based fertilizers from the Zhejiang province of China. These trace elements included copper, zinc, arsenic, chromium, mercury, lead and cadmium. The targeted antibiotics included four groups: sulfonamides, tetracyclines, fluoroquinolones and chloramphenicols. The median amounts of copper, zinc, arsenic, chromium, mercury, lead and cadmium in the analyzed samples were 160, 465, 7.9, 21.2, 0.3, 8.1 and 0.6 mg·kg − 1 , respectively. Seventeen antibiotics were detected. Enrofloxacin was the most frequently detected compound, with a detection rate of 39.3% and concentrations ranging from 6.7 μg·kg − 1 to 4091 μg·kg − 1 . Based on the referred loading rates in agricultural soil, 10% of the collected manure-based fertilizer samples might pose a high potential ecological risk due to the presence of antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]