Abstract
An anaerobic biological fluidized bed was used to treat a synthetic wastewater containing three types of nitrophenols. The results proved that para-nitrophenol (p-NP) was the most toxic nitrophenol to methane producing bacteria while meta-nitrophenol (m-NP) was found to be less toxic, with ortho-nitrophenol (o-NP) being the least toxic to the methane bacteria. The results also showed that o-NP was much more easily decomposed by the microbes on the activated carbon biofilm. During the anaerobic digestion it was found that wastewater containing o-NP had the largest specific methane production rate, specific growth rate, and specific substrate utilization rate, while wastewater containing p-NP had the smallest rate figures. In addition, analyzing metabolites of the effluent indicated the anaerobic metabolism of m-NP started with a hydrogenation reduction, resulting in the production of m-aminophenol follwed by phenol after deamination.
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