Effect of ibuprofen (IBU) on the sulfur-based and calcined pyrite-based autotrophic denitrification (SCPAD) systems with two filling modes: Performance and toxic response mechanism

To investigate the effect of ibuprofen (IBU) on the sulfur-based and calcined pyrite-based autotrophic denitrification (SCPAD) systems, two individual reactors with the layered filling (L-SCPAD) and mixed filling (M-SCPAD) systems were established via sulfur and calcined pyrite. Effluent NO₃⁻-N concentration of the L-SCPAD and M-SCPAD systems was first increased to 6.44, 0.93 mg/L under 0.5 mg/L IBU exposure and gradually decreased to 1.66 mg/L, 0 mg/L under 4.0 mg/L IBU exposure, indicating that NO₃⁻-N removal performance of the M-SCPAD system was better than that of the L-SCPAD system. The variation of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) characteristics demonstrated that more EPS was secreted in the M-SCPAD system compared to the L-SCPAD system, which contributed to forming a more stable biofilm structure and protecting microorganisms against the toxicity of IBU in the M-SCPAD system. Moreover, the increased electron transfer impedance and decreased cytochrome c implied that IBU inhibited the electron transfer efficiency of the L-SCPAD and M-SCPAD systems. The decreased adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and electron transfer system activity (ETSA) content showed that IBU inhibited metabolic activity, but the M-SCPAD system exhibited higher metabolic activity compared to the L-SCPAD system. In addition, the analysis of the bacterial community indicated a more stable abundance of nitrogen removal function bacteria (Bacillus) in the M-SCPAD system compared to the L-SCPAD system, which was conducive to maintaining a stable denitrification performance. The toxic response mechanism based on the biogeobattery effect was proposed in the SCPAD systems under IBU exposure. This study provided an important reference for the long-term toxic effect of IBU on the SCPAD systems.