Achieving biodegradability enhancement and acute biotoxicity removal through the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater using a combined internal electrolysis and ultrasonic irradiation technology

Actual pharmaceutical wastewater was treatedusing a combined ultrasonic irradiation (US) and iron/cokeinternal electrolysis (Fe/C) technology. A significantsynergetic effect was observed, showing that ultrasonicirradiation dramatically enhanced the chemical oxygendemand (COD) removal efficiencies by internal electrolysis.The effects of primary operating factors on CODremoval were evaluated systematically. Higher ultrasonicfrequency and lower pH values as well as longer reactiontime were favorable to COD removal. The ratio ofbiochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and COD (B/C) ofthe wastewater increased from 0.21 to 0.32 after US-Fe/Ctreatment. An acute biotoxicity assay measuring theinhibition of bioluminescence indicated that the wastewaterwith overall toxicity of 4.3 mg-Zn^(2+)·L^(-1) wasreduced to 0.5 mg-Zn^(2+)·L^(-1) after treatment. Both the rawand the treated wastewater samples were separated andidentified. The types of compounds suggested that theincreased biodegradability and reduced biotoxicityresulted mainly from the destruction of N,N-2 dimethylformamide and aromatic compounds in the pharmaceuticalwastewater.

Biotoxicity dynamic change and key toxic organics identification of coal chemical wastewater along a novel full-scale treatment process

It is particularly important to comprehensively assess the biotoxicity variation of industrial wastewater along the treatment process for ensuring the water environment security.However,intensive studies on the biotoxicity reduction of industrial wastewater are still limited.In this study,the toxic organics removal and biotoxicity reduction of coal chemical wastewater(CCW)along a novel full-scale treatment process based on the pretreatment process-anaerobic process-biological enhanced(BE)process-anoxic/oxic(A/O)process-advanced treatment process was evaluated.This process performed great removal efficiency of COD,total phenol,NH_(4)^(+)-N and total nitrogen.And the biotoxicity variation along the treatment units was analyzed from the perspective of acute biotoxicity,genotixicity and oxidative damage.The results indicated that the effluent of pretreatment process presented relatively high acute biotoxicity to Tetrahymena thermophila.But the acute biotoxicity was significantly reduced in BE-A/O process.And the genotoxicity and oxidative damage to Tetrahymena thermophila were significantly decreased after advanced treatment.The polar organics in CCW were identified as the main biotoxicity contributors.Phenols were positively correlated with acute biotoxicity,while the nitrogenous heterocyclic compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were positively correlated with genotoxicity.Although the biotoxicity was effectively reduced in the novel full-scale treatment process,the effluent still performed potential biotoxicity,which need to be further explored in order to reduce environmental risk.