Investigation of Triclosan Fate and Performance in Continuous-Flow Activated Sludge Systems.

Ongoing and widespread use of triclosan (TCS) negatively affects the environment and human health. The objective of this study was to investigate the fate of TCS in activated sludge systems under pulsed electric field stimulation and to explore the role of biodegradation and adsorption in its removal. Two parallel PEF-SBRs activated sludge systems were constructed with sodium acetate (R1) and glucose (R2) as carbon sources respectively to illustrate the effects of different carbon source treatment systems on the performance, extracellular polymer substances (EPS) secretion characteristics, and microbial communities of TCS-containing wastewater. TCS inhibited ammonia removal, with the inhibition becoming more pronounced as the TCS concentration (range of 0.5–5 mg/ L) increases, but the inhibition gradually faded as the sludge was acclimatized, and the continuous increase of TCS concentration had almost no effect on the removal effect. The EPS contents increased when TCS was added at 5 mg/L but decreased significantly at 10 mg/L TCS. The main removal pathway for TCS in both reactors was biodegradation, but the degradation efficiency of TCS was significantly higher in R2 than in R1. High throughput sequencing data showed that Thauera was dominant in R1, while Pseudomonas had the highest proportion of relative abundance in R2. This study further illustrated the effect of TCS on activated sludge systems and microbial communities under the influence of pulsed electric fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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