Desalination 118(1):315–322īrown KD, Kulis J, Thomson B, Chapman TH, Mawhinney DB (2006) Occurrence of antibiotics in hospital, residential, and dairy effluent, municipal wastewater, and the Rio Grande in New Mexico. Wiley, New Jerseyīouhabila EH, Aïm RB, Buisson H (1998) Microfiltration of activated sludge using submerged membrane with air bubbling (application to wastewater treatment). Desalination 126(1):1–5Īndrade LS, Rocha-Filho RC, Cass QB, Fatibello-Filho O (2009) Simultaneous differential pulse voltammetric determination of sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim on a boron-doped diamond electrode. In the second and third compartment antibiotic-resistant bacteria were the dominant attached living organisms.Ībdessemed D, Nezzal G, Aim RB (1999) Treatment of wastewater by ultrafiltration. In the first compartment where biomass was exposed to highest concentration of antibiotics, fungus strains were the dominant organism. For observation of dominant microorganism, samples of the developed biofilm on rotating biological contactor discs were scanned by scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that trimethoprim removal efficiency was approximately 100%, even at high concentration of trimethoprim (50 mg/L). In the next step, simultaneous removal of both antibiotics for constant inlet COD concentration of 8000 mg/L at optimum hydraulic retention time was analysed. Moreover, the results demonstrated that with increasing in organic load rate, sulfamethoxazole elimination was enhanced. In addition, the effect of hydraulic retention time, organic load rate and sulfamethoxazole concentration in the removal of sulfamethoxazole and organic matter was assessed. The optimal hydraulic retention time for desired rate of COD removal was 36 h. The obtained results indicated that by increasing hydraulic retention time, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal was gradually increased. This system was continuously operated for about one year at various organic loading rates with different antibiotic dosages. For this purpose, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim were treated by a pilot scale of net-like rotating biological contactor with three compartments, 48 plastic discs with total volume of 78.75 L. In this research, elimination of antibiotics from synthetic wastewater was investigated. Antibiotic contamination of aqueous environment due to pharmaceutical sewage may lead to development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strain.