Abstract Ultrasound (US) is being considered as a promising emerging advanced oxidation process to degrade persistent organic-pollutants. This paper investigated the effect of several operating parameters on the degradation of a recalcitrant pharmaceutical product, namely ibuprofen (IBP), using an ultrasound-assisted biological reactor. The tested operating parameters are the power density (960, 480) W/L, US frequency (1,142, 860, 578) kHz, working volume (500, 250) mL, initial IBP concentration (30, 60) mg/L, and pH (8.2, 4). It was observed that the IBP degradation was directly influenced by the power density, and the highest degradation efficiency (99%) was obtained at 960 w/L. However, the degradation of IBP at sonication time of 120 min was found to increase from 39% to 96% while decreasing the US frequency from 1,142 to 578 kHz. The working volume had no clear effect on the IBP degradation. The optimal pH was found to be 4, which resulted in 99.5% IBP degradation efficiency after 120 min of sonication time. The degradation of IBP followed the first order kinetics. Finally, the sonically-treated water was fed to a subsequent aerobic biological reactor. The results revealed that the remaining chemical oxygen demand (COD) after sonication was lowered in the biological reactor by a percentage of 47%.

中文翻译：

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使用高频超声辅助生物反应器优化布洛芬在水中的降解

摘要超声波（美国）被认为是一种有前景的新兴高级氧化工艺，可降解持久性有机污染物。本文使用超声辅助生物反应器研究了几种操作参数对难降解药物（即布洛芬 (IBP)）降解的影响。测试的操作参数包括功率密度 (960, 480) W/L，US 频率 (1,142, 860, 578) kHz，工作体积 (500, 250) mL，初始 IBP 浓度 (30, 60) mg/L，以及pH 值 (8.2, 4)。据观察，IBP 降解直接受功率密度影响，在 960 w/L 时获得最高降解效率（99%）。然而，发现超声处理时间为 120 分钟时，IBP 的降解从 39% 增加到 96%，同时超声频率从 1,142 kHz 降低到 578 kHz。工作量对 IBP 降解没有明显影响。发现最佳 pH 值为 4，超声处理 120 分钟后 IBP 降解效率为 99.5%。IBP 的降解遵循一级动力学。最后，将经过声波处理的水送入后续的好氧生物反应器。结果显示，超声处理后生物反应器中剩余的化学需氧量 (COD) 降低了 47%。