LAUSR

Abstract The advanced treatment of biotreated Chinese patent medicine wastewater (BCPMW) was urgently necessitated to meet the strictest wastewater discharge standard. In the present study, combined ozone/peroxymonosulfate oxidation and upflow biological aerated filter process (O3/PMS-UBAF) significantly integrated advantages of O3/PMS oxidation and UBAF, and has been demonstrated to be very effective in the advanced treatment of BCPMW. For dissolved organic matter (DOM) in BCPMW, O3/PMS oxidation efficiently degraded higher molecular weight (MW) fractions and non-biodegradable fractions. In addition, O3/PMS oxidation not only increased the overall removal of DOM but also enhanced the biodegradation rate of DOM. Therefore, the beneficial effect of O3/PMS oxidation may mainly be due to the special effect of increased biodegradability and the generalized effect on DOM. Finally, the results also indicated that compared with UBAF alone, O3/PMS-UBAF not only promoted the removal of low MW fractions (