1. Introduction
Fermentative residues from bio-fermentation processes producing medicines generally consist of mycelia and fermentative substrates, as a kind of typical process wastes from light industry and also a kind of biomass resources. However, it is difficult to tackle with this kind of biowastes because they usually have high contents of moisture (usually over 80 wt.%) mostly existing as the forms of the “bound” (interstitial and vicinal) and intercellular water which are refractory to mechanical dewatering (Neyens et al., 2004). Because of incomplete extraction there unavoidably remain a certain quantity of medicines in the residues, and discharging the residues without preceding innocent treatment will have to bring about serious environmental pollution and even threat the food chain of animals and human beings. China has the largest production of antibiotics in the world (e.g., in 2007, about 210,000 ton antibiotics were produced in China (Hvistendahl, 2012)), and each year there are millions of tons of antibiotic residues generated (an estimated value based on an average mass ratio of antibiotic product to residue by-product (with typical water contents of more than 80 wt.%) of 1:60).