Performance of anaerobic sequencing batch reactor in the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater containing erythromycin and sulfamethoxazole mixture

Abstract

This study evaluates the joint effects of erythromycin-sulfamethoxazole (ES) combinations on anaerobic treatment efficiency and the potential for antibiotic degradation during anaerobic sequencing batch reactor operation. The experiments involved two identical anaerobic sequencing batch reactors. One reactor, as control unit, was fed with synthetic wastewater while the other reactor (ES) was fed with a synthetic substrate mixture including ES antibiotic combinations. The influence of ES antibiotic mixtures on chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, volatile fatty acid production, antibiotic degradation, biogas production, and composition were investigated. The influent antibiotic concentration was gradually increased over 10 stages, until the metabolic collapse of the reactors, which occurred at 360 days for the ES reactor. The results suggest that substrate/COD utilization and biogas/methane generation affect performance of the anaerobic reactors at higher concentration. In addition, an average of 40% erythromycin and 37% sulfamethoxazole reduction was achieved in the ES reactor. These results indicated that these antibiotics were partly biodegradable in the anaerobic reactor system.

Development of antibiotic resistance genes in microbial communities during long-term operation of anaerobic reactors in the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater

“…Moreover, the variations of ARGs in sludge samples were much greater than in wastewater effluent from the ST and STE reactors, which may indicate that antibiotic absorption by anaerobic sludge can stimulate acquisition of ARGs in the sludge. These results are also supported by Zhang et al (2013) and Aydin et al (2014).…”

“…Detailed information on the setup, operation and performance of the reactors has been reported in the previous studies (Aydin et al, 2014(Aydin et al, , 2015b. To summarize, the experimental set-up consisted of three 1,5 L anaerobic SBRs that were of identical dimensions and configurations.…”

“…The antibiotic concentrations used in each stage are given in Table 1. The performance of the reactors was observed throughout the operational period, which was 360 days (10th Stage) for ST reactor and 420 days (12th Stage) for STE reactor (Aydin et al, 2014(Aydin et al, , 2015b. Triplicate samples were collected from the liquor and sludge samples that were extracted from the sulfamethoxazole-tetracycline-erythromycin (STE) and the sulfamethoxazole-tetracycline (ST) reactors on the 10th, 20th and 30th day of every antibiotic stage for genomic DNA (gDNA) and total RNA isolation.…”

A Review on Pharmaceutical Wastewater Characteristics, Treatment Techniques and Reusing

“…Abdel-Shafy and Mansour [52] The researchers used the cyclic activated sludge procedure (CASS) and MBR for treating PWW; excessive concentrations of antibiotics remain from 0.14 mg/L to 92.2 mg/L Wang et al [53] The researchers studied the waste treatment of synthetic antibiotics. In the experiment, the COD was reduced from 2,500 mg/L to 62 mg/L Aydin et al [54] The researchers investigated manufacturing and cleaning treatment equipment and observed a 52.2% COD reduction Chen et al [55] 2011a…”