Removal of concentrated sulfamethazine by acclimatized aerobic sludge and possible metabolic products

Abstract

This article examined the biological removal of high concentrated sulfamethazine (SMZ) antibiotics by the acclimatized activated sludge in lab-scale SBRs system. The removal of SMZ was characterized by a quick adsorption and a slow process of biodegradation. The adsorption capacity of activated sludge for SMZ was 44 and 47 µg SMZ/g SS, respectively, with the initial SMZ concentrations of 1 and 2 mg/L. The adsorption process fitted pseudo-second-order kinetic model. In a series of batch studies, with the increase of initial SMZ concentration that were 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9 mg/L, 56.0%, 51.3%, 42.2%, 29.5%, 25.0% and 20.8% of influent SMZ were biodegraded within 24 h of biological reaction, respectively. The Monod equation applied to simulate SMZ biodegradation had a good coefficient of determination (R2 > 0.99). Furthermore, the results of HPLC demonstrated that the SMZ was not completely removed by the acclimatized activated sludge. From the analysis of LC-MS, 4 intermediates of SMZ biodegradation were identified: Sulfanilic Acid, 4-amino-N-(4,6-dimethyl-2 pyrimidin) benzene sulfonamide, N-(4,6-dimethyl-2-pyrimidin)-4-N-(benzene sulfonamide) benzene sulfonamide, N-(4,6-dimethyl-2-pyrimidin)-4-N-(4,6-dimethyl pyrimidine) benzene sulfonamide, and N-(4,6-dimethyl-2-pyrimidin)-4-N-(3-dimethyl-4-N sodium benzene sulfonamide) benzene sulfonamide.

Responses of the microbial community and the production of extracellular polymeric substances to sulfamethazine shocks in a novel two-stage biological contact oxidation system

“…However, the SMZ, COD, and -N removal efficiencies all had a decreasing trend when the SMZ concentration in the influent increased to 3 mg/L. This phenomenon was similar to Yang et al ( 2015 ) in that SMZ was not completely removed by the acclimatized activated sludge. However, it was lower than the 95.4% removal under 0.1–5 mg/L SMZ during the MBR system (Shi et al, 2018 ).…”

“…It was pumped into the reactor continuously at room temperature (25–30°C) for 80 days. The flow rate of the peristaltic pump was 4.25 mL/min to maintain the hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24 h. The operation process could be generally divided into three phases based on SMZ shocks in the influent, which gradually increased from 0.10 to 1 mg/L and 3 mg/L, according to previous studies (Yang et al, 2015 ; Li et al, 2019 ).…”

Clustering micropollutants based on initial biotransformations for improved prediction of micropollutant removal during conventional activated sludge treatment

“…54 The sulfamethoxazole (SMX) cluster includes sulfamethazine, sulfadiazine, sulfamethoxazole, and sulfamerazine, all of which contain a sulfonamide functional group and all were reported to undergo sulfonamide hydrolysis (btrule 144) in activated sludge, which is consistent with observations in experiments with bacteria isolated from activated sludge. [55][56][57] Diclofenac (DCL) and mefenamic acid form their own cluster; these two micropollutants are the only micropollutants in the database that contain a 1-amino- Based on this review of predicted and observed biotransformations among these 15 micropollutants (16 when bezafibrate is included, and 221 independent observations), it is reasonable to expect that R% within each of the six micropollutant clusters is determined by the same set of predictors. We performed a GAM and stepwise regression on R% as a response variable with six physicochemical properties and six process parameters as predictor variables for each of the ten imputed datasets for each of the micropollutant clusters.…”

Occurrence and Removal of Veterinary Antibiotics in Livestock Wastewater Treatment Plants, South Korea

“…The removal efficiency of sulfamethazine reported by Oliveira et al (2017) was lower than that reported in this study, but both studies showed similar increasing trends in the removal efficiency of sulfamethazine with increased HRTs. Previous studies suggest that sulfonamides are removed mainly by quick adsorption onto the sludge, and subsequent biodegradation in the biological treatment process [35,36]. Thus, the biodegradability in a longer HRT might improve the removal of sulfamethazine.…”