The combustion characteristics for three kinds of antibiotics residue (AR) materials were investigated by TG-FTIR and Py-GC/MS technique. The TG results indicated that AR combustion involved three stages, and correlation between the H/C atomic ratio of the raw materials and peak temperature of weight loss for the second stage was obtained. The FTIR spectra identified evolving gaseous products as CO2, CH4, HCNO, NH3, HCN, and NO. An AR material with a low H/C ratio promoted the formation of CO2 and HCN, but suppressed the yields of NH3 and CH4. The Py-GC/MS results suggested that abundant volatiles can be produced, including alkenes, benzene, phenols, furans, acid, and heterocyclic-N, nitrile-N and amine-N compounds, and confirmed the FTIR absorption characteristics in the low temperature range. A possible pathway for the AR combustion was also tentatively presented. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.