Biodegradability simulation studies in semicontinuous activated sludge reactors with low (μg/L range) and standard (ppm range) chemical concentrations

The official OECD/EEC activated-sludge biodegradability simulation test has been criticised for providing a poor simulation of the biodegradability behaviour of industrial chemicals in municipal sewage treatment plants due to the high dosed concentration of test substance of approx. 20–40 mg/L necessitated by measuring compound removal by DOC-analysis. Realistic concentrations of industrial chemicals are more commonly in the μg/L range. With increasing concentration both the kinetic regime of degradation and the adaptation behaviour can be expected to change. Results from a comparative study in semicontinuous reactors with high (20 mg DOCAL) and low (10 μg test substance/L) inlet concentrations of aniline, 4-chloroaniline, and pentachlorophenol, conducted by means of 14C-tracer technique, revealed large differences in biodegradation behaviour between the two concentration levels and led to the following tentative general conclusions: 1) the percentage of test compound removed by unadapted sludge tends to be higher with test compound dosed at trace concentrations than at standard (high) concentrations (20 mg/DOC/L); 2) by contrast, in successfully adapted systems, the removal percentage (and the “extent of adaptation”) may be largest with high concentrations; 3) the use of real sewage instead of peptone synthetic sewage better safeguards against sludge deterioration, in particular at low sludge retention times, and tends to increase the adaptation potential of the sludge; 4) the use of synthetic sewage in combination with regular reinoculation of the reactor (in this study by replacing 10% of the sludge with freshly collected sludge once a week) may be a feasible alternative to using real sewage.