Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 3, 2026

Development of Sulfidogenic Sludge from Marine Sediments and Trichloroethylene Reduction in an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactor
Published on: October 15, 2015
Effects of single and combined copper/perfluorooctane sulfonate on sequencing batch reactor process and microbial
Xintong Liu1, Hua Yin1, Shaoyu Tang1
1Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education on Pollution Control and Ecosystem Restoration in Industry Clusters, Guangdong Provincial Engineering and Technology Research Center for Environmental Risk Prevention and Emergency Disposal, School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Abstract:
Long-term exposure experiments with single and combined pollutants of copper (Cu)/perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) were conducted to explore the influence on activated sludge in SBRs. Compared with the control, the removal of organics, nitrogen and phosphorus in the presence of PFOS exhibited no apparent difference, but reduced in different degrees when Cu and Cu/PFOS existed. PFOS exposure deteriorated the settling performance of activated sludge with SVI value and amount of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) increasing, but posed little impacts on microbial activity (dehydrogenase, protease) and antioxidant activity (SOD, CAT). Under Cu and Cu/PFOS loading, dehydrogenase and protease activity were observed to decrease as well as SOD and CAT activity. The sequencing results revealed that bacterial richness and community diversity reduced under Cu and Cu/PFOS exposure. Overall, adverse effect of combined pollution was lower than that of single Cu in long-time due to antagonistic effect existed between Cu and PFOS.

