Removal of organic pollutants from real pharmaceutical industrial wastewater with environmentally friendly processes

The manufacture of pharmaceutical products generates wastewater that contains a variety of specific pollutants. The application of biological treatment with activated sludge is a commonly used process in industrial wastewater treatment with the aim of removing organic compounds by combining biosorption with biodegradation as a metabolic reaction of microorganisms, which are environmentally friendly processes. The efficiency of biosorption process ranged from 9.5 to 40.2%, with the values removal efficiency of toxic compounds ranging from 22.61 to 60.33%, while the overall biodegradation efficiency of organic pollutants ranged from 51.30 to 60.60%. By combining the process of biosorption and biodegradation, the optimal concentration of activated sludge was 4.96 ± 0.23 g dm−3 for treating real pharmaceutical industrial wastewater. The morphology of the activated sludge maintained its structure, indicating that the activated sludge is resistant to changes in the pharmaceutical industrial wastewater treatment system.