Performance of an up-flow anaerobic bio-electrochemical system (UBES) for treating sulfamethoxazole (SMX) antibiotic wastewater.

ABSTRACT

This paper focused on the feasibility and performance of an up-flow anaerobic bio-electrochemical system (UBES) for treating sulfamethoxazole (SMX) antibiotic wastewater at different COD loading rates (LRs) from 2.02 ± 0.13 to 6.09 ± 0.14 kgCOD/(m3·d). Open-circuit UBES had a lower average COD removal rate of 62.4 ± 4.7% in Run2, and the accumulation of volatile fatty acid (VFA) was occurred. However, closed-circuit UBES can alleviate the accumulation of VFA (which was decreased from 720.4 to 102.4 mg/L), the highest average COD, SMX removal rates were 85.7 ± 3.2% and 73.7 ± 2.0%, respectively. The closed-circuit UBES can withstand more than 3 times LR than open-circuit UBES, which proved that the ability of microorganisms to resist toxic substance stress was strengthened. And the mathematical models for pollutants removal rate were established and well interpreted the results, which also can guide the operation of UBES.