Removal of Fluoroquinolones and Sulfonamides Using Two Different Anaerobic Fixed-Bed Reactors: Impact of the Flow Type and Ecotoxicity Effects

Biodegradation has proven to be an efficient technique for removing micropollutants as antibiotics, pollutants found in lower concentrations (ng to μg L−1) in wastewater, as microorganisms can remove excess organic carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus and can also reduce the toxicity of the active compounds of micropollutants through changes in their chemical structure, such as through hydrolysis (Rios Miguel et al., 2020). Fixed bed reactors have been used because they can maintain high biomass retention with less washing of microorganisms and high sludge retention times, even using low hydraulic retention times (HRT) (Méndez-Romero et al., 2011). The PF-AnFBR and CS-AnFBR are two type of anaerobic fixed-bed reactors and were operated at HRTs of 16 h and 8 h reducing the toxicity of synthetic wastewater containing 12 antibiotics for C. sancticaroli larvae, considering the mortality endpoint.