Atrazine removal from aqueous solutions using submerged biological aerated filter

Atrazine is widely used in the agriculture as an herbicide. due to its high mobility, atrazine leaks into thegroundwaters, surface waters, and drinking water wells. many physical and chemical methods have been suggestedfor removing atrazine from aquatic environments. however, these methods are very costly, have manyperformance problems, produce a lot of toxic intermediates which are very harmful and dangerous, and cannotcompletely mineralize atrazine. in this study, biodegradation of atrazine by microbial consortium was evaluated inthe aquatic environment. in order to assess the atrazine removal from the aquatic environment, submergedbiological aerated filter (sbaf) was fed with synthetic wastewater based on sucrose and atrazine at differenthydraulic retention times (hrts). the maximum efficiencies for atrazine and soluble chemical oxygen demand(scod) removal were 97.9% and 98.9%, respectively. the study findings showed that stover-kincannon model hadvery good fitness (r2 > 99%) in loading atrazine in the biofilter and by increasing the initial concentration ofatrazine, the removal efficiency increased. aerobic mixed biofilm culture was observed to be suitable for thetreatment of atrazine from aquatic environment. there was no significant inhibition effect on mixed aerobicmicrobial consortia. atrazine degradation depended on the strength of wastewater and the amount of atrazine inthe influent.