Removal of tetracycline by using membrane biofilm reactor

Tetracyclines are one of the antibiotics used to prevent the diseases and improve the development of human and animals. Nowadays, as a result of increased animal husbandry activities the antibiyotic pollution has considerably occured in the aquatic environment. Especially human origin tetracyclines can not be degraded and partially removed from water because of the high resistance in the wastewater treatment plants. In this study, removal of tetracyclines were investigated by using hydrogen and oxygen-based membrane biofilm reactors (MBfR). For better understanding the mechanism of biological degradation of tetracycline in H2-based membrane biofilm reactor system, nitrate and tetracycline were used as the primary and secondary electron acceptor, respectively, while H2 was used as electron donor. The maximum removal efficiency of tetracycline obtained in the H2-MBfR reached % 85 as NO3--N removal was generally higher than 99 %. Nitrite accumulation was not observed in the reactor. In order to understand the oxidation mechanism of tetracycline in O2-based membrane biofilm reactor system, O2 was used as electron acceptor, ammonium as primary electron donor and tetracyclines as second electron donor. Maximum TC removal during the operation was approximately % 70 as nitrification process was effectively carried out to be higher than 99% in the reactor. Key Words: Membrane biofilm reactor, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Electron donor, Electron acceptor, Tetracycline, Nitrification, Denitrification.