Feasibility of partial-denitrification/anammox for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment in a hybrid biofilm reactor

Biological nitrogen removal from pharmaceutical wastewater has drawn increasing attention due to biotoxicity and inhibition. In this study, for the first time, a novel approach integrating partial-denitrification with anaerobic ammonia oxidation (PD/A) in a sequencing biofilm batch reactor (SBBR) was proposed and demonstrated to be efficient to treat the bismuth nitrate and bismuth potassium citrate manufacturing wastewater, containing ammonia (NH4+-N) and nitrate (NO3- -N) of 6300 +/- 50 mg L -1 and 15,300 +/- 50 mg L -1. The maximum anammox activity was found at the shock effect of influent total nitrogen (TN) of 100 mg L -1 with NO3- -N/NH4+-N of 1.0. Long-term operation demonstrated that the PD/A biofilm was developed rapidly after 30 days using synthetic influent, with TN removal efficiency increasing from 40.9% to 80.8%. Significantly, the key bacteria for PD/A had high tolerance and adapted rapidly to pharmaceutical wastewater, achieving a relatively stable TN removal efficiency of 81.2% with influent NH4+-N and NO3- -N was 77.9 +/- 2.6 and 104.1 +/- 4.4 mg L -1 at a relatively low COD/NO3- -N of 2.6. Anammox pathway contributed to TN removal reached 83.6%. Significant increase of loosely-bound extracellular polymeric substances was obtained with increasing protein of 3-turn helices structure as response to the inhibitory condition. High-throughput sequencing analysis revealed that the functional genus Thauera was highly enriched in both biofilms (9.5%-*43.6%) and suspended biomass (15.5%-*57.5%), which played a key role in high NO2- -N accumulation. While the anammox bacteria decreasing from 7.8% to 1.6% in biofilm, and from 1.8% decreased to 0.1% in the suspended sludge. Overall, this study provides a new method of high-strength pharmaceutical wastewater treatment with low energy consumption and operation cost, as well as a satisfactory efficiency.

Automated summary

This study proposed and demonstrated a novel approach integrating partial-denitrification with anaerobic ammonia oxidation for efficient biological nitrogen removal from high-strength pharmaceutical wastewater. The PD/A biofilm showed high tolerance and adaptation to pharmaceutical wastewater, achieving a stable TN removal efficiency. High-throughput sequencing analysis revealed important bacterial communities contributing to high NO2- -N accumulation in the system. Overall, this new method offers a satisfactory efficiency for high-strength pharmaceutical wastewater treatment with low energy consumption and operation cost.