PPCPs removal by aerobic granular sludge membrane bioreactor

An aerobic granular sludge membrane bioreactor (GMBR) was applied to the treatment of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) wastewater. The influence of granular sludge on five antibiotic and antiphlogistic PPCPs wastewater and the removal effect of methyl alcohol and conventional organic matter were investigated while constantly reducing the density of inflow organic matter. The results showed that the sludge granulation process in the system was rapid but unstable, and that the system exhibits a dissolution-reunion dynamic equilibrium. The reactor demonstrated varying removal effects of PPCPs on different objects. The use of a GMBR was more effective for the removal of prednisolone, naproxen, and ibuprofen; the first two drugs were lower the average removal rate of which reached 98.46 and 84.02 %, respectively; whereas the average removal rate of ibuprofen was 63.32 %. By contrast, the GMBR has an insignificant degradation effect on antibiotics such as amoxicillin, indicating that such antibiotic medicine is not easily degraded by microorganisms, which plays different roles in system operation. Because of the different chemical structures and characteristics of drugs that result in various degradation behavior. During the GMBR granulation process, the value of mixed liquor volatility suspended solids (MLVSS) gradually increases from 1.5 to 4.1 g/L during the GMBR granulation process, and the removal rate of CODCr reaches up to 87.98 %. After reducing the density of organic matter is reduced, the removal rates of NH3-N and TP both reach more than 90 %, respectively. Moreover, the proposed technique is considerably effective in the removal of methanol.