Microelectricity enhances aerobic granular sludge granulation and sulfamethazine degradation: Performance, mechanism, antibiotic resistance genes and microbial community

With the widespread use of typical antibiotics such as sulfamethazine (SMT), it leads to their accumulation in the environment, increasing the risk of the spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) has shown great potential in treating antibiotic wastewater. However, the long cultivation period of AGS, the easy disintegration of particles and the poor stability of degradation efficiency for highly concentrated antibiotic wastewater are still urgent problems that need to be solved, and it is important to explore the migration and changes of ARGs and microbial diversity in AGS systems. In this study, a microelectrically enhanced pelletizing reactor (MEPR) was innovatively constructed using a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) coupled with an AGS system, and a comparative study was carried out using a conventional sequential batch reactor (SBR). The results showed that the AGS obtained from MEPR culture was smooth white spherical, with rich internal microbial phase and good sludge activity. The microelectric condition shortened the AGS culture cycle by 10 days, with smaller AGS particle size, denser structure, and better pollutant degradation ability, and the average removal rate of SMT by MEPR (74.3 %) was much higher than that of SBR (3.13 %). The microelectrical properties reduced the sludge pressure to a certain extent, induced the reasonable secretion of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), and kept the MEPR in a strong stable state. High-throughput sequencing and detection of ARGs indicated that MEPR had a richer microbial community structure, which significantly controlled the enrichment of ARGs. This study provides a theoretical reference for enhanced sludge granulation and biological treatment of high concentration antibiotic wastewater.