Advanced treatment of bio-treated Chinese patent medicine wastewater using ozone/peroxymonosulfate-upflow biological aerated filter

The advanced treatment of biotreated Chinese patent medicine wastewater (BCPMW) was urgently necessitated to meet the strictest wastewater discharge standard. In the present study, combined ozone/peroxymonosulfate oxidation and upflow biological aerated filter process (O₃/PMS-UBAF) significantly integrated advantages of O₃/PMS oxidation and UBAF, and has been demonstrated to be very effective in the advanced treatment of BCPMW. For dissolved organic matter (DOM) in BCPMW, O₃/PMS oxidation efficiently degraded higher molecular weight (MW) fractions and non-biodegradable fractions. In addition, O₃/PMS oxidation not only increased the overall removal of DOM but also enhanced the biodegradation rate of DOM. Therefore, the beneficial effect of O₃/PMS oxidation may mainly be due to the special effect of increased biodegradability and the generalized effect on DOM. Finally, the results also indicated that compared with UBAF alone, O₃/PMS-UBAF not only promoted the removal of low MW fractions (<3kDa) but also inhibited the formation of higher MW fractions (3–10 kDa) that was generated by UBAF alone.