title: Continuous treatment of non-sterile hospital wastewater by Trametes versicolor: How to increase fungal viability by means of operational strategies and pretreatments.
abstract: Hospital wastewaters have a high load of pharmaceutical active compounds (PhACs). Fungal treatments could be appropriate for source treatment of such effluents but the transition to non-sterile conditions proved to be difficult due to competition with indigenous microorganisms, resulting in very short-duration operations. In this article, coagulation-flocculation and UV-radiation processes were studied as pretreatments to a fungal reactor treating non-sterile hospital wastewater in sequential batch operation and continuous operation modes. The influent was spiked with ibuprofen and ketoprofen, and both compounds were successfully degraded by over 80%. UV pretreatment did not extent the fungal activity after coagulation-flocculation measured as laccase production and pellet integrity. Sequential batch operation did not reduce bacteria competition during fungal treatment. The best strategy was the addition of a coagulation-flocculation pretreatment to a continuous reactor, which led to an operation of 28days without biomass renovation.
authors.affiliation: Departament d'Enginyeria Química Biològica i Ambiental, Escola d'Enginyeria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Mir-Tutusaus
authors.affiliation: Departament d'Enginyeria Química Biològica i Ambiental, Escola d'Enginyeria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: Montserrat.Sarra@uab.cat.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sarrà
authors.affiliation: Institut de Química Avançada de Catalunya (IQAC) CSIC, Jordi Girona 18-26, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Caminal
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D019149:Bioreactors; D006761:Hospitals; D007052:Ibuprofen / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D007660:Ketoprofen / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D042845:Laccase / Q000096:biosynthesis; D008506:Medical Waste; D017744:Medical Waste Disposal / Q000379:methods*; D055454:Trametes / Q000378:metabolism*; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D014871:Water Microbiology; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
chemical_list: D008506:Medical Waste; D017744:Medical Waste Disposal; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D007660:Ketoprofen; D042845:Laccase; D007052:Ibuprofen
keywords: Fungal bioreactor; Hospital wastewater; Non-sterile; Pharmaceutical active compounds; Pretreatment