A long time ago, we became aware of the severity of water pollution. Therefore, all industries are required to properly treat and monitor wastewater prior to discharge. This article explains how fermentation pharmaceutical enterprises treat discharged wastewater, which can be analyzed under the following scenarios:

1.For fermentation pharmaceutical wastewater with low inhibitory toxicity or easily biodegradable organic matter, direct adjustment pretreatment followed by an anaerobic digestion–aerobic biological treatment process can be adopted. This process achieves a COD removal rate of 93%–95%.

2.For wastewater with strong inhibitory toxicity or poorly biodegradable organic matter, coagulation–sedimentation pretreatment can be used to improve biodegradability, followed by hydrolysis acidification–aerobic biological treatment and subsequent physicochemical treatment, yielding a COD removal rate of 93%. Further treatment with biochar or a biological aerated filter (BAF) can increase the removal rate even further.

3.For extremely refractory fermentation pharmaceutical wastewater, oxidation–flocculation pretreatment, combined with hydrolysis acidification, aerobic biological treatment and subsequent physicochemical treatment is required. This achieves a COD removal rate of 95%–97%. However, oxidation–flocculation entails relatively high treatment costs, which enterprises with limited budgets must take into account.

Following disinfection and sterilization of the wastewater, Real-time Online Water Quality Monitoring must also be implemented to verify that all pollutant indicators meet discharge standards.