Occurrence and removal of bisphenol analogues in wastewater treatment plants and activated sludge bioreactor

The occurrence and removal of ten bisphenol analogues (BPs) in municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and laboratory scale activated sludge bioreactor (ASBR) were studied. All targeted BPs except for tetrachlorobisphenol A (TCBPA) were detected in the four WWTPs (W1, W2, W3 and W4) in the ng/L and ng/g dry weight range in wastewater and activated sludge, respectively, indicating that in addition to BPA, the BPA substitutes were widely used in our daily life and industrial production. Discrepant results regarding the removal efficiencies of BPs by different wastewater treatment processes were obtained. The removal rates were 55.6%, 24.4%, -10.1%, 71.4%, 38.9%, 58.0%, 39.1% and 6.4% in W1, 65.4%, 32.8%, 44.7, -13.5%, 20.1%, -29.6%, -25.1% and 99.4% in W2, 11.6%, 48.8%, 38.9%, 22.0%, 99.0%, -29.2%, -56.5% and 32.6% in W3, 33.9%, 30.5%, 17.4%, -47.6%, 62.9%, 83.0%, 4.4% and -4.3% in W4, for BPA, BPB, BPE, BPF, BPS, BPZ, BPAF and BPAP, respectively. The removal of ten targeted BPs in lab-scale continuous flow conventional ASBR and the key factors were investigated. The simulated laboratory-scale ASBR were highly effective in removing BPA, BPB, BPE, BPF, BPM and BPS with removal efficiencies of >94.3%, while BPZ, BPAP, BPAF and TCBPA were recalcitrant to elimination in the stimulated bioreactor with removal efficiencies of 71.3 ± 13.7%, 55.1 ± 21.2%, 47.4 ± 9.5% and 45.3 ± 16.6%, respectively. Protonation, hydrophobicity and molecular features of BPs were critical for their elimination in wastewater.

A novel salt-tolerant bacterial consortium for biodegradation of saline and recalcitrant petrochemical wastewater

Treatment of a saline petrochemical wastewater with BOD₅/COD ratio of less than 0.1 was investigated using a consortium consisted of three isolated salt-tolerant bacteria namely, Kocuria turfanesis, Halomonas alkaliphila and Pseudomonas balearica. Selected bacteria were isolated from petrochemical wastewater containing mineral salt mediums of 3% salinity. A lab-scale activated sludge bioreactor was used for startup in batch mode operation and after obtaining the MLSS concentration of about 3000 mg/L, the operation was changed to continuous flow mode to determine the biokinetic coefficients under different organic loading rates of 0.33-1.21 kg CODm^-3 d^-1. The COD removal efficiency of 78.7%-61.5% was observed for treatment of real saline wastewater with a decreasing trend along with increasing the organic loading rate. In addition, results of kinetic investigation demonstrated that the yield(Y), endogenous decay coefficient (k_d), maximum reaction rate (K_max), maximum specific growth rate (μ_max) and saturation constant (K_s) were 0.54 mg VSS mg COD^-1, 0.014 day^-1, 1.23 day^-1, 0.66 day^-1, and 1315 mg L^-1, respectively.