Removal of paracetamol by an activated sludge bioreactor

Abstract

the increased presence in wastewaters, rivers and other aquifers is of environmental concern. The search for new technologies that can solve the problem is imperative. This work proposes the use of activated sludge for paracetamol (PARA) removal. Different PARA concentrations were tested (0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.8, and 1 mg L-1) in a batch reactor with a working volume of 4 L. The uptake values increased with increasing initial PARA concentration, from 0.104 to 0.341 mg g-1, in agreement with the theoretically expected. The removal percentage ranged from 93.3 to 98.8 decreasing with the increase on the initial concentration. The removal mechanism is well described by the pseudo 1st order model and pseudo 2nd order model, for all concentrations tested.