Acute impact of erythromycin on substrate utilization by activated sludge: effect of sludge age

BACKGROUND: This study involved model evaluation of the acute impact of erythromycin on substrate utilization of aerobic activated sludge biomass, at sludge ages of 10 and 2 days. Acute inhibition experiments involved two fill/draw reactors, supplying the biomass, and two sets of batch reactors, which were all fed with the same peptone-meat extract mixture. Each set included a control reactor started without antibiotic addition and parallel reactors with pulse erythromycin additions.