Effects of carrier addition on water quality and pharmaceutical removal capacity of a membrane bioreactor - Advanced oxidation process combined treatment.

This research was performed to assess the production of reclaimed water from urban wastewater in membrane bioreactor - advanced oxidation process (MBR-AOP) and moving bed biofilm reactor - membrane bioreactor - advanced oxidation process (MBBR-MBR-AOP) combined treatments to study the effect of biofilm incorporation. Both combined treatments were operated at the same conditions (10 h of hydraulic retention time, 6500 mg/L of mixed liquor suspended solids and 25 mg/L of hydrogen peroxide dosage over 15 min). Additionally, the removal capacity of some pharmaceuticals (carbamazepine, ciprofloxacin and ibuprofen) and their impact on the kinetic behaviour of the biomass in both systems were evaluated. From the results, it was found a membrane-based bioreactor can achieve both wastewater secondary treatment and pre-treatment for advanced oxidation process, so both MBR-AOP and MBBR-MBR-AOP treatments have a great potential to produce high quality reclaimed water (biological oxygen demand <0.5 mgO2/L, suspended solids <1 mg/L, turbidity <1 NTU and no presence of E. coli), according to European Commission proposal 2018/0169/COD. The addition of carriers improved the biodegradation of the most persistent pharmaceuticals in the biological treatment (from 69.20 ± 1.54% to 75.14 ± 2.71% for carbamazepine and from 60.41 ± 2.16 to 63.14 ± 2.70% for ciprofloxacin). It had, as a consequence, the MBBR-MBR-AOP system showing a complete degradation of pharmaceuticals after 5 min AOP treatment compared to the MBR-AOP system. The loss of biomass in the MBR-AOP (from 5233.45 to 4451.92 mg/L) and the increase of the substrate degradation rate for organic matter in both treatments (from 37.27 to 41.42 and from 30.25 to 33.19 mgO2/(L·h) in MBR-AOP and MBBR-MBR-AOP, respectively) are some of the consequences of pharmaceuticals in urban wastewater.