Water and Environmental Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Lund University, P.O. Box 124, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden.
Water Res. 2012 Mar 15;46(4):1167-75. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2011.12.003. Epub 2011 Dec 11.
Removal of seven active pharmaceutical substances (ibuprofen, ketoprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, clofibric acid, mefenamic acid, and gemfibrozil) was assessed by batch experiments, with suspended biofilm carriers and activated sludge from several full-scale wastewater treatment plants. A distinct difference between nitrifying activated sludge and suspended biofilm carrier removal of several pharmaceuticals was demonstrated. Biofilm carriers from full-scale nitrifying wastewater treatment plants, demonstrated considerably higher removal rates per unit biomass (i.e. suspended solids for the sludges and attached solids for the carriers) of diclofenac, ketoprofen, gemfibrozil, clofibric acid and mefenamic acid compared to the sludges. Among the target pharmaceuticals, only ibuprofen and naproxen showed similar removal rates per unit biomass for the sludges and biofilm carriers. In contrast to the pharmaceutical removal, the nitrification capacity per unit biomass was lower for the carriers than the sludges, which suggests that neither the nitrite nor the ammonia oxidizing bacteria are primarily responsible for the observed differences in pharmaceutical removal. The low ability of ammonia oxidizing bacteria to degrade or transform the target pharmaceuticals was further demonstrated by the limited pharmaceutical removal in an experiment with continuous nitritation and biofilm carriers from a partial nitritation/anammox sludge liquor treatment process.
采用批量实验，利用取自多个大型污水处理厂的悬浮生物膜载体和活性污泥，评估了七种活性药物物质（布洛芬、酮洛芬、萘普生、双氯芬酸、氯贝酸、甲芬那酸和吉非罗齐）的去除情况。实验表明，硝化活性污泥和几种药物的悬浮生物膜载体的去除效果有明显差异。与污泥相比，来自大型硝化污水处理厂的生物膜载体对双氯芬酸、酮洛芬、吉非罗齐、氯贝酸和甲芬那酸的单位生物量去除率（即污泥的悬浮固体和载体的附着固体）要高得多。在目标药物中，只有布洛芬和萘普生在单位生物量的去除率方面，污泥和生物膜载体表现出相似的情况。与药物去除情况相反，载体的硝化能力比污泥低，这表明观察到的药物去除差异不是由亚硝酸盐或氨氧化菌造成的。在一个连续亚硝化和生物膜载体的实验中，氨氧化菌对目标药物的降解或转化能力有限，进一步证明了这一点，该实验来自部分亚硝化/厌氧氨氧化污泥液处理工艺。
