Abstract:
The detected level of organic micropollutants (OMPs) in influent and effluent to water system from wastewater treatment plants draws people’s attention over the negative effects on the health of organisms of aquatic and terrestrial systems. The cost of current OMPs removal such as UV treatment and membrane reactor are extremely expensive for wastewater treatment plants especially for developing countries. Previous studies indicated that oxidative stress can stimulate microbes to produce oxidoreductases, which can catalyse OMP biodegradation. This study is mainly focus on catalyse OMP degradation from farm and municipal wastewater by using oxidative stress to induce enzyme production. Microbes from dairy farm and wastewater treatment plants runoff sludge was cultured in fed-batch reactor with synthetic wastewater including acetate as carbon source and a mixture of six OMPs (sulfadiazine, sulfamethoxazole, carbamazepine, lincomycin, atrazine and naproxen) at a concentration of 0.2 mg/L (0.1 mg/L per stage). OMP degradation was caused by both biotic and abiotic factors. Sulfamethoxazole, carbamazepine, lincomycin and atrazine were removed significantly by non-biological factors with perturbation compared to non-perturbation treatment. These results indicate that oxidative stress (cycled DO perturbation) in biological treatment process can induce enzyme productions to enhance OMP degradation. However, the detailed mechanism behind the degradation still needs further study and analysis.
