Performance of anaerobic sequencing batch reactor in the
treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater containing
erythromycin and sulfamethoxazole mixture
S. Aydin, B. Ince, Z. Cetecioglu, E. G. Ozbayram, A. Shahi, O. Okay,
O. Arikan and O. Ince
ABSTRACT
This study evaluates the joint effects of erythromycin–sulfamethoxazole (ES) combinations on
anaerobic treatment efficiency and the potential for antibiotic degradation during anaerobic
sequencing batch reactor operation. The experiments involved two identical anaerobic sequencing
batch reactors. One reactor, as control unit, was fed with synthetic wastewater while the other
reactor (ES) was fed with a synthetic substrate mixture including ES antibiotic combinations. The
influence of ES antibiotic mixtures on chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, volatile fatty acid
production, antibiotic degradation, biogas production, and composition were investigated. The
influent antibiotic concentration was gradually increased over 10 stages, until the metabolic collapse
of the reactors, which occurred at 360 days for the ES reactor. The results suggest that substrate/
COD utilization and biogas/methane generation affect performance of the anaerobic reactors at
higher concentration. In addition, an average of 40% erythromycin and 37% sulfamethoxazole
reduction was achieved in the ES reactor. These results indicated that these antibiotics were partly
biodegradable in the anaerobic reactor system.
S. Aydin (corresponding author)
Z. Cetecioglu
E. G. Ozbayram
A. Shahi
O. Arikan
O. Ince
Environmental Engineering Department,
Istanbul Technical University,
Maslak, Istanbul,
Turkey
E-mail: sevcan_aydn@hotmail.com
B. Ince
Institutes of Environmental Sciences,
Bogazici University,
Bebek, Istanbul,
Turkey
O. Okay
Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
Department,
Istanbul Technical University,
Maslak, Istanbul,
Turkey
Key words | anaerobic reactor, antibiotics, biodegradation, inhibition, pharmaceutical wastewater
INTRODUCTION
Pharmaceutical companies produce a large variety of pro-
ducts that are used in both human and veterinary
medicines. The manufacturing processes that prominent
pharmaceutical companies use incorporate five main
processes: fermentation, extraction, chemical synthesis, for-
mulation, and packaging. Although all of these processes
produce some wastewater, it is the fermentation and syn-
thesis operations that generate the largest amount of waste
product; also, the wastewaters from these processes contain
the highest amount of organic load (Sarantopoulos et al.
; Larsson et al. ). These active compounds also
cannot be completely metabolized by the human body and
cannot be removed completely in sewage treatment systems;
they can be found in wastewater (Kümmerer ; Santos
et al. ). Although the concentration of these antibiotics
is relatively low in raw domestic wastewater, it can be sig-
nificantly higher in hospital and pharmaceutical
production facilities’ effluents, reaching around the
100–500 mg/L level (Kümmerer ; Amin et al. ).
This accumulation can adversely affect and change the
microbial community that is present in biological waste-
water treatment processes (Selvam et al. ; Resende
et al. ).
Two different biological treatment processes have been
used to treat and control the wastewater that is produced
as a byproduct of pharmaceutical manufacturing tech-
niques: aerobic and anaerobic (Amin et al. ;
Fountoulakis et al. ; Cetecioglu et al. ; Dorival-
García et al. ). While activated sludge treatment has
been used to treat wastewater, this process is unsuitable in
situations where the chemical oxygen demand (COD)
levels of the water exceed 1,500 mg/L (Chelliapan et al.
; Oktem et al. ). In recent years, research indicates
that the high COD concentration of pharmaceutical indus-
try wastewater makes anaerobic technology a favorable
treatment (Shimada et al. ; Cetecioglu et al. ). This
1625 © IWA Publishing 2014 Water Science & Technology | 70.10 | 2014
doi: 10.2166/wst.2014.418
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