Conventional Sewage Treatment Research Articles

Small Scale Wastewater Treatment Method for Rainwater Garden Based on Photovoltaic Photocatalysis Technology

Conventional small-scale sewage treatment mostly adopts the principle of biological contact oxidation process, which has limited scope of application, low degradation rate of pollutants in sewage, and poor sewage treatment effect. Based on this, a new small-scale sewage treatment method was proposed by introducing photovoltaic photocatalysis technology and taking S sponge community in Ningnan County, Liangshan Prefecture as an example. First, hydrothermal method is used to prepare photocatalyst to provide basic guarantee for sewage treatment. Secondly, the rainwater garden model is simulated and designed to obtain the composition and content of small-scale sewage. On this basis, a rainwater garden photovoltaic photocatalytic water purification system is designed, which establishes an A/O integrated process by connecting the anoxic zone (A section) and aerobic zone (O section) in series to fully achieve the goal of sewage treatment. Experimental analysis shows that the new method can significantly improve the degradation rate of organic pollutants in rainwater garden wastewater, with a degradation rate of over 99% and a maximum degradation time of 10.97 seconds, indicating that the application effect of this method is good.

Unraveling the crucial role of Mo2N from Fe/Mo bimetal MOF-derived catalyst in initiating Fe3+/Fe2+ redox cycle to activate peroxymonosulfate for dibutyl phthalate degradation

Phthalic acid esters (PAEs) pose serious health risks to humans and are difficult to remove by conventional sewage treatment processes. Herein, Fe2Mo3O8/MoO2/Mo2N composite (FMON) derived from bimetallic organic framework was used to activate peroxymonosulfate (PMS) for dibutyl phthalate (DBP) degradation. FMON exhibited an excellent catalytic effect with DBP removal efficiency of 92.4 % within 60 min. Mo2N showed a superior ability in promoting Fe3+/Fe2+ redox cycle. The reduction efficiencies of Fe3+ by Mo2N/MoO2 composite and MoO2 were 67 %–94 % and 11 %–23 %, respectively, in the homogeneous comparative experiment. Moreover, the ratio of Fe2+/Fe3+ in FMON increased significantly after the catalytic reaction. Fe element doping also enhanced the reuse stability and reduced the metal ion leaching of the catalyst. The degradation of DBP was mediated by a variety of reactive species, of which SO4−, OH and O2− were dominant. Fe element, Mo element and O vacancies were confirmed to exert significant contributions as active sites in the catalytic process. Three degradation pathways of DBP were obtained by DFT calculation and HPLC-MS analysis. And the toxicity of DBP degradation products was significantly reduced based on the assessment result of Toxicity Estimation Software Tool (T.E.S.T.). This study explored a novel Fe/Mo bimetallic catalyst with friendly Fe3+/Fe2+ cycling for environmental catalysis and provided new ideas for the treatment of PAEs wastewater.

Performance Evaluation of conventional Sewage Treatment Plant, Iraq

One of the most pressing challenges facing contemporary health is the purification of drinking water and wastewater. Pollutants in wastewater are among the most widespread in the environment, and there is a broad spectrum of detrimental impacts associated with untreated or badly treated wastewater. The current research assessed the efficacy of the Al Rumaitha wastewater treatment facility in Muthanna province, Iraq, in eliminating municipal pollutants according to national standards. Pollutant characteristics were measured using samples taken both from the plant’s raw wastewater intake and its finished treated water output. These parameters are the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Suspended Solids(TSS), Ammonia (NH3), Phosphorus (PO4), and the quantitative measure of the acidity or basicity (pH). According to the results, all analyses of collected samples of the plant’s effluent met the Iraqi water quality standards(IWQS) for pH, COD, BOD5, and TSS, whereas the values of NH3 and PO4 did not reach the (IWQS) in all months. where mean monthly removal efficiencies of 86% for BOD5, 80% for COD, 93% for TSS, 39% for PO4, and 27% for NH3 were achieved. Briefly, it can be said that the Al-Rumaitha WWTP has an acceptable level of efficacy in treating wastewater for some of the examined parameters and providing water in line with Iraqi environmental regulations, but not for others.

Infilling missing data and outliers for a conventional sewage treatment plant using a self-organizing map: a case study of Kauma Sewage Treatment Plant in Lilongwe, Malawi

Abstract Data availability is key for modeling of wastewater treatment processes. However, process data are characterized by missing values and outliers. This study applied a self-organizing map (SOM) to fill in missing values and replace outliers in wastewater treatment data from Kauma Sewage Treatment Plant in Lilongwe, Malawi. We used primary and secondary wastewater data and executed the SOM algorithm to fill missing values and replace outliers in effluent pH, biochemical oxygen demand, and dissolved oxygen. The results suggest that the SOM algorithm is reliable in filling gaps in wastewater time series data with less than 50% missing values with correlation coefficient (R) values of >0.90. The SOM algorithm failed to reliably fill gaps and replace outliers in time series data with >50% missing values. For instance, high mean square error (MSE) values of 3,655.57, 10.62, and 2,153.34 for pH, DO, and BOD, respectively, were registered in datasets with more than 50% missing values, while very small MSE values (MSE ≈ 0) were associated with effluent pH, BOD, and DO data with missing values of >50%. Practitioners can use this approach to improve the planning and management of wastewater treatment facilities where available data records are riddled with missing observations.

Design of 50KLD MBBR based Sewage Treatment for Hostel Building, Nagpur

Abstract: Sewage water recovery is the treatment or processing of Sewage water to make it applicable. This paper shows the design of various component of conventional sewage treatment plant using Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor technique at College Hostel, Nagpur. The project consisting of the design of complete Sewage Treatment Plant components consist of Bar Screen Chamber, Equalization Tank, Aeration Tank, Clarifier Tank, Pressure Sand filter, Activated Carbon Filter and Treated Water Tank. Among the available technologies for waste water treatment, MBBR sewage treatment is most suitable. It is a leading technology in waste water treatment as this system can operate at lower vestiges and give advanced efficiency of treatment. It’s compact and effective option for domestic waste treatment. In duly designed MBBR, the whole reactor volume is active, with no dead space or short circuiting. This paper demonstrates the detailed procedure for the design of a MBBR grounded sewage treatment plant of 50 KLD capacity for an educational lot.

Environmental sustainability assessment of captive conventional sewage treatment plant designs

Environmental sustainability assessment of captive conventional sewage treatment plant designs

Insights into adsorption and high photocatalytic oxidation of ciprofloxacin under visible light by intra-molecular Donor-Acceptor like p-n isotype heterojunction: Performance and mechanism

Antibiotics, e.g. ciprofloxacin (CIP) are frequently detected in natural waters and sewage, however, the conventional sewage treatment techniques presents a great challenge for efficient removal them due to the inhibition of bacterial proliferation. Herein, the intra-molecular Donor-Acceptor like p-n isotype heterojunction of phosphorus and boron co-doped hollow tubular g-C3N4 (xB-PCN) was synthesized for high-efficiency visible light photocatalytic degradation of CIP. The Mott-Schottky curves showed that the xB-PCN exhibited both p and n-type conductivities, which probably because the doped boron has electron acceptor effect and the NH/NH2 groups could act as electron donors. This unique property enables xB-PCN to have excellent charge generation, separation and transfer ability for the highly efficient photodegradation of CIP, reaching 87.56% of decomposition efficiency within 1 h with the apparent rate constant (0.01151 min−1) of 6.85 times that of PCN. Furthermore, the 3B-PCN maintained high degradation percentage in tap water (84.63%) and aquaculture wastewater (78.41%). The results of LC-MS and TOC showed that CIP was gradually mineralized and the degradation pathways were proposed. Based on the radical trapping experiments and ESR characterization, the reactive oxygen species involved in the degradation of CIP were checked. This work offers a promising approach for treating antibiotics polluted water based on a metal-free conjugated polymeric g-C3N4.

Physical Separation: Reuse Pollutants and Thermal Energy from Water

Conventional sewage treatment based on biological and chemical methods have made historical contributions to humans. However, it breaks the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus and cannot remove hazardous materials including viruses and nano/microplastics. Therefore, we rethought the conceptual revolution of principles of sewage treatment in the 1890s, that is, “the replacement of a philosophy that saw sewage purification as the prevention of decomposition with one that tried to facilitate the biological processes that destroy sewage naturally”. We proposed a promising sewage treatment system based on physical separation, which mainly consists of the source separators and the insoluble-pollutants separators, soluble-pollutants separators, and the wastewater heat recovery devices in wastewater treatment plants. By using the promising system, the carbon in wastewater will be recovered by sending biosolids directly into the soil after removing the hazardous materials and organic toxicity. The nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater will be sent back into the soil or be used for hydroponics rather than be mineralized. The thermal energy in wastewater will be recovered and reused, and the hazardous materials will be removed. As a result, the promising system will turn the wastewater treatment system with high resource and thermal energy waste and high energy consumption into a no-chemicals, green factory. At present, nonetheless, it is still urgent to develop more advanced insoluble-pollutants separators and soluble-pollutants separators with high separation efficiency and low energy consumption, especially volume separators. Because the volume separators (e.g., functionalized sand filters) have the potential for replacing the surface separators (e.g., membranes).

The Elimination of Pharmaceutical Agents with Microbiological Treatment from Municipal Sewage

Pharmaceutical agents accumulate in wastewater after consumption, but the conventional sewage treatment process is unable to remove them completely. The occurrence of certain compounds in the environment brings forth serious problems even at low concentrations. In this study, the microbiological elimination ability of four non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)—ibuprofen, naproxen, ketoprofen and diclofenac—were investigated under laboratory, pilot and plant conditions. Mixed cultures from environmental matrices presumably have the ability to reduce the concentration of target agents effectively. According to our analytical measurements, certain mixed cultures gained from natural habitats were even capable of reducing the amount of diclofenac efficiently, after being enriched to a 109 colony-forming unit—CFU/mL scale, and inoculated in adequate quantity. Target NSAIDs were detected at µg/L levels in both influents and effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The results showed that inoculated conventional activated sludge sewage treatment technologies have high efficiency for removing ibuprofen, ketoprofen and naproxen. The diclofenac-specific bacteria mix exhibited mild but positive removal efficiency compared to the control plant. This removal ability is also influenced by the hydraulic retention time (HRT).

Research Status and Development Trend of Wastewater Treatment Technology and Its Low Carbonization

With the rapid development of the social economy, the demand for water resources is gradually increasing, and the corresponding impact of water pollution is also becoming more severe. Therefore, the technology of sewage treatment is developing rapidly, but corresponding problems also arise. The requirements of energy conservation and emissions reduction under the goal of carbon neutrality and dual carbon pose a challenge to the traditional concept of sewage treatment, and there is an urgent need for low-carbon sewage treatment technology aiming at energy conservation, consumption reduction and resource reuse. This review briefly introduces conventional sewage treatment technology and low-carbon sewage treatment technology, and analyzes the research status and development trend of low-carbon sewage treatment technology in detail. The analysis and comparison of conventional and low-carbon sewage treatment technologies is expected to provide a theoretical basis for the practical engineering application of low-carbon sewage treatment technologyto achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. It is of great significance to promote the sustainable development of society and the economy.

Approach to achieve controlled particle size synthesis of non-polar functionalised siloxane particles using a one-pot synthesis

The homogeneous addition of functional silanes dissolved in a co-solvent such as ethanol has been shown to change particle growth mechanisms as well as control over particle size and dispersity, especially for non-polar silanes. Highly monodisperse size-controlled silica particles from 50 to over 1000 nm bearing thiol, vinyl, phenyl, propyl, cyanopropyl and chloropropyl R group functionality were synthesised directly from the corresponding single organosilane source. Observing particle growth over time revealed that it proceeded by a conventional Stöber process, where silane monomers and oligomers add to nucleation sites, resulting in particle growth. Scale-up of the homogeneous mixing approach produced gram quantities of particles without affecting size, size dispersion or functionality under good mixing. The presence and functionality of the surface R groups were confirmed by a simple second addition of reactive molecules to the particle synthesis liquor, resulting in theoretical maximum attachment densities.

Degradação de fármacos em efluentes sanitários pela combinação de processos de oxidação e foto-oxidação

Abstract Most conventional sewage treatment systems are not able to fully remove micropollutants found in sewage. Thus, the simultaneous degradation of 11 pharmaceuticals identified in the effluent of a sewage treatment plant in Southern Brazil was herein investigated through advanced oxidation processes based on ozonation, ultraviolet radiation and hydrogen peroxide. For detection, samples were prepared through solid-phase extraction and pharmaceuticals were identified through ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Active ingredients such as ciprofloxacin, oxytetracycline, paracetamol, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim had their concentrations increased for degradation analysis purposes. Trials were carried out on a bench at room temperature and neutral pH, with aliquots collected at 7.5 and 15 minutes. Two ozone doses (0.5 and 0.9 mg per mg of dissolved organic carbon), and combinations of the lowest ozone dose with photolysis (254 nm) and with 25 mg.L−1 of hydrogen peroxide were evaluated. Pharmaceuticals mineralization efficiency was assessed in a total organic carbon analyzer. The process combining ozone, hydrogen peroxide and ultraviolet radiation was the most efficient in the degradation of all pharmaceuticals detected in this study, since it enabled reducing oxytetracycline by 89.32%, caffeine by 96.79%, trimethoprim by 97.40%, ciprofloxacin by 97.75%, sulfamethoxazole by 99.79%, paracetamol by 99.96%, and clindamycin, ofloxacin, sulfadiazine, sulfathiazole and tylosin by 100%. This process also recorded the highest mineralization rate (60.52%), fact that confirmed the potential to decrease persistent pharmaceuticals found in conventional sewage treatment systems.

Toxicity Removal of Pharmaceuticals Mixtures through Electron Beam Irradiation

Contamination of the aquatic environment by pharmaceuticals is becoming a global phenomenon of growing concern. Pharmaceuticals can be only partially metabolized during therapeutic use, resulting in the excretion and release of residual fractions into sewage, unaltered or in the form of metabolites they may remain active in sewage treatment facilities for a long time. Many studies have shown that wastewater treatment plants are not designed to eliminate these compounds, as such the main source of drug residues in the aquatic environment. Due to their frequency and detection in the environment, persistence and toxicity, the most studied pharmaceutical groups are antibiotics, psychiatric drugs, hormones, analgesics and anti-inflammatory, β-blockers, and antidiabetic drugs. Advanced Oxidative Processes (AOPs) have been applied as an alternative or complement to conventional sewage treatment processes, aiming the degradation and removal of toxic pollutants. Electron beam irradiation (EBI) is considered a clean process that offers an environmentally friendly alternative to degrade pollutants in the aquatic environment. This technology has been demonstrated effective for removal of multiclass pharmaceutical residues present in wastewater by using low doses (2.5-5.0 kGy). In this present study, we focused on toxicity removal of three different tertiary mixtures of pharmaceuticals, which showed toxicity removal efficiency around 80% for the mixture of Propranolol, Fluoxetine and Diclofenac; 75% for the mixture of Propranolol, Fluoxetine and Sulfadiazine; and 30% for the mixture of Acetylsalicylic acid, Fluoxetine and Metformin.

Feasibility of a Novel (SHEFROL) Technology in Pre-Treating Eatery Wastewater at Pilot Scale

The wastewater ensuing from public eateries is higher in its chemical and biological oxygen demand (COD and BOD) as also its oil, grease, and protein content than sewage. For this reason such wastewater is much harder to treat; its content of fats, proteinaceous material, and xenobiotics mounting major challenges. But in most of the developing world about 80% of such wastewater is discharged untreated and the remaining is mixed with sewage going to the treatment plants. This happens due to the prohibitively high cost of treatment that is entailed if these wastewaters are to be treated by conventional activated sludge processes (ASPs) or a combination of anaerobic digestion and ASPs. The practice of allowing eatery wastewater to join sewage en route sewage treatment plants increases the load on the latter, especially due to the high fat and protein content of the former. The present work describes attempts to use the recently developed and patented SHEFROL® technology in affecting treatment of wastewater coming from a typical eatery. After establishing feasibility at bench scale, the process was tested in a case study at pilot plant scale for treating 12,000 litres/day (LPD) of wastewater being generated by the eateries situated in the campus of Pondicherry University, India. The capacity of the pilot plant was then expanded to 30,000 LPD. Despite operating the units at a very low hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 2 ± 0.5 h, due to the limitations of land availability, which translates to a rate about three times faster than a typical ASP, over 50% removal of COD and BOD, and similarly substantial removal of other pollutants was consistently achieved. Given that the SHEFROL units can be set up at a negligible cost, the findings indicate that SHEFROL technology can be used to significantly yet inexpensively pre-treat eatery wastewaters before either sending them for further treatment to conventional sewage treatment plants, higher-end SHEFROL units, or discharging them directly if neither of the other two options is available.

Enhanced biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal from sewage driven by fermented glycerol: comparative assessment between sequencing batch- and continuously fed-structured fixed bed reactor.

The nutrient biological removal from sewage, especially from anaerobic reactor effluents, still represents a major challenge in conventional sewage treatment plants. In this work, the nitrogen and phosphorus removal from anaerobic pre-treated domestic sewage in an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor was assessed in a structured fixed bed reactor (SFBR) operated in a continuous and in a batch mode using polyurethane foam as material support for biomass and fermented glycerol as the exogenous carbon source. The SFBR was operated as a sequencing batch reactor with cycles of 90, 120, and 150min under anaerobic, oxic, and anoxic conditions, respectively, reaching average efficiencies for total nitrogen and phosphorus removal of 88% and 56%, respectively. Fermented glycerol was added during the non-aerated periods. Under continuous feeding, the SFBR was operated with aeration/non-aeration periods of 2/1 (h) and 3/1 (h), hydraulic retention time of 12h, and a recirculation ratio of 3. Without fermented glycerol addition, the maximum removal of total nitrogen (TN) reached 42%, while adding glycerol in the non-aerated period improved TN removal to 64.9% (2/1h) and 69.5% (3/1h). During continuous operation, no phosphorus removal was observed, which was released during the non-aerated period, remaining in the effluent. Optical microscopy analyses confirmed the presence of polyphosphate granules and of the phosphorus accumulating organisms in the reactor biofilm. It was concluded that the batch feeding method was determinant for phosphorus removal. The structured fixed bed reactor with polyurethane foam proved to be feasible in the removal of organic matter and nutrients remaining in the UASB reactor effluent.

A new insight to explore toxic Cd(II) affecting denitrification: Reaction kinetic, electron behavior and microbial community

Denitrification process is a crucial step in nitrogen removal and is more vulnerable to external shocks due to the fact that anoxic process is always located before aerobic process in conventional sewage treatment. This study aims to elaborate the nitrogen conversion characteristics by investigating denitrification kinetics, electron behavior and microbial community under Cd(II) shock. Reaction kinetics showed that 10 mg/L of Cd(II) accelerated nitrate reduction rate by 52.29% but 80 mg/L of Cd(II) severely decelerated it by 95.41% with the accumulation of nitrite. High concentration of COD (C/N = 10.4) in the system caused by Cd(II) disrupting the integrity of cell membrane (lactate dehydrogenase increased by 328.7%) was proved to induce occurrence of Dissimilatory Nitrate Reduction to Ammonia (DNRA). The electron transport system activity (ETSA), electron consumption and electron distribution were combined to reveal the electron behavior regulated by Cd(II). The electron ratio of nitrate reductase to nitrite reductase increased from 1.48 (control) to 3.91 and 3.52 (40 and 80 mg/L of Cd(II)) indicated the electrons allocating tendency and further explained the nitrite accumulation. High concentration of Cd(II) also decreased ETSA by weakening the physiological activities of flavin adenine dinucleotide, flavin mononucleotide and cytochrome c or hindered the microbes to secrete these electron carriers. Furthermore, Cd(II) inhibited dominant bacteria genera containing napA gene (Azospirillum and Thauera) and nirS gene (unclassified_c_Betaproteobacteria). Enterobacteriaceae family was found to dominate the DNRA process.

Lithium cobalt oxide with excellent electron mobility: An efficient activator of peroxymonosulfate for the degradation of sulfamethoxazole

Aiming at the problems of sulfamethoxazole (SMX), such as large amount of usage, high degradation difficulty and low removal efficiency of conventional sewage treatment technology, commercial lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) was employed as heterogeneous catalyst to activate peroxymonosulfate (PMS) for SMX degradation in this study. Various characterization methods were applied to investigate the morphology and physicochemical properties of LCO catalysts. Then, complete removal of SMX (2.5 mg/L) was attained within 30 min, the dissolution of cobalt ion was less than 0.1 mg/L, and the removal rate of SMX could still be maintained at 90% after five consecutive cycles, revealing that LCO had outstanding catalytic performance, excellent electron transfer rate, wide operating pH range and good stability. The susceptibility of inorganic anions, diverse water bodies and distinct contaminants to LCO/PMS system was investigated to explore its realistic application. Further exploration demonstrated that the reactive species generated on SMX degradation were sulfate radical (SO4•–) and hydroxyl radical (•OH), in which SO4•– performed a leading role. Integrated with XPS analysis, it was proposed that the Co3+/Co2+ redox companions were the active sites for activating PMS. The possible degradation pathways were put forward by discussing the intermediates of SMX which identified by UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS. In short, this work was conducive to supply a reference for the application of cobalt based doped heterogeneous catalyst in the field of wastewater treatment.

Highly dispersed Ag and g-C3N4 quantum dots co-decorated 3D hierarchical Fe3O4 hollow microspheres for solar-light-driven pharmaceutical pollutants degradation in natural water matrix

The efficient removal of pharmaceutical pollutants presents a great challenge for the conventional sewage treatment system. Herein, we document the nanosheets assembled 3D hierarchical Fe3O4 hollow microspheres co-modified by Ag and g-C3N4 quantum dots (Ag/CNQDs@Fe3O4) for efficient degradation of two classic anticancer drugs, i.e., capecitabine (CAP) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FLU) under visible light in 1 h. Benefiting from the unique hierarchically hollow structure, the intrinsic strengths of each component and their interactions, synergistic reinforcing mechanism is constructed, furnishing more accessible reactive places, promoting the diffusion of pollutants/oxidants, improving charge separation ability, and raising light utilization rate. Consequently, Ag/CNQDs@Fe3O4 can not only show superior photocatalytic properties, but also greatly boost PMS activation to yield sufficient oxidative radicals. More notably, the studied system also features excellent stability and strong tolerance to real water samples, and maintains appreciable performance even under natural sunlight illumination. The predominant active species, possible ADs decomposition pathways, and underlying reaction mechanism for the Ag/CNQDs@Fe3O4/PMS/vis system are thoroughly explored. This work presents significant advancement in enabling an integrated technology of PMS and photocatalysis to realize its great potential in environment restoration.

Fate and removal of emerging contaminants in anaerobic fluidized membrane bioreactor filled with thermoplastic gel as biofilm support

The Anaerobic Fluidized Membrane Bioreactor (AnFMBR) is a membrane–based hybrid technology that can overcome the limitations of conventional anaerobic sewage treatment. Although previous studies have demonstrated excellent performance in the removal of conventional organic pollutants, further research into the removal paths of emerging contaminants (ECs) under various operating conditions is required for proper design and development of the AnFMBR technology. Regarding this, the fate of four ECs in a lab-scale AnFMBR filled with thermoplastic gel for biofilm growth was investigated under various Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) conditions. When the HRT was 13 h, diclofenac and 17β-estradiol were efficiently removed at 93% and 72% respectively. Even after an HRT reduction to 6.5 h, the system was still able to maintain high ECs removals (74% for diclofenac and 69% for 17β-estradiol). However, irrespective of HRT operational condition, smaller removals of 17a-ethinylestradiol (37–52%) were observed, while only marginal removals of amoxicillin were achieved (5–29%). Biotransformation was attributed as the main route for ECs removal. The results obtained in this study indicate that the membrane-based hybrid AnFMBR can be used to treat the target ECs without influence on anaerobic process. The technology had better removal efficiency for diclofenac and 17β-estradiol. However, the AnFMBR system exhibits high variability in EC removal and low capacity for amoxicillin removal, implying that a combination of other processes is still required to properly avoid the release of these contaminants into the environment.

Fate of Emerging Contaminants in an Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge Plant

Conventional sewage treatment techniques have shown low removal efficiency for emerging contaminants (ECs). Hence, more efficient treatment systems need to be investigated. The current study suggests that an Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge Process (IFAS) could be one such alternative. The degradation of eight ECs in municipal sewage has been studied during the transition of a pilot IFAS plant to a steady state and compared with the removal of the eight ECs in a conventional sequencing batch reactor (SBR)–based sewage treatment plant at a steady state. In the six weeks before attaining a steady state, the outlet total biochemical oxygen demand, total chemical oxygen demand, and total suspended solids (TSS) decreased from 42 to 10 mg/L, 96 to 26 mg/L, and 38 to 10 mg/L, respectively. The suspended biomass concentration, hydraulic retention, and return sludge rate of the plant were 1,600 mg/L, 6.9 h, and 175% of inflow, respectively. During the transition to a steady state in the IFAS plant, the removal efficiency of Caffeine, Gemfibrozil, and Testosterone was found to increase by 41% (15%–56%), 26% (63%–89%), and 65% (19%–84%) respectively, due to enhanced biological degradation. The SBR was found to be more efficient in the removal of ECs, which could be due to the higher concentration of suspended biomass.