The common activated sludge used was taken from the secondary sedimentation
tank of a municipal sewage treatment plant located
in Nanjing. The control SBR was initially seeded with 6 g activated
sludge (measured in dry weight) and was operated under
the same conditions as the bioaugmented SBR, except for the
inocula used. Specifically, 1000 mg L−1 pyridine and 1000 mg L−1
acetate sodium was added into the synthetic influent as the carbon
sources for the first week. One week later, acetate sodium
in synthetic influent was reduced to 800 mg L−1 while pyridine
remained the same as the first week. However, due to
the complete failure, the control SBR stopped running after 2 week.