The comparison of previous research with existing research findings was added in the final part of the results and discussion. The added paragraph is as follows: PPCPs risks have been posing severe challenges to the safety of drinking water supply in rural areas due to the absence of the process with simple operation and maintenance as well as reliable performance. In this study, BAC coupling gravi-ty-driven UF was performed continuously, and the rejection performance of mem-brane filtration and BAC filtration both showed barriers for the conventional pollu-tants and PPCPs. Furthermore, this study indicated the respective contributions of BAC and UF, showing the role of the two-stage biofilm. Previous works involving BAC generally combined the ozonation with the BAC filter for treating the contaminants of emerging concern, eliminating a majority of PPCPs by more than 90% [34]. However, the regulation and maintenance of machines for ozone products are complicated, and the disinfection by-products will be newly generated in the effluent, which is incon-venient to use in rural areas [35]. In general, coagulation, filtration and single BAC units worked inefficiently and removed the detected PPCPs by less than 50%, as they were not hydrophobic [34, 36]. Hybrid membrane processes such as inline dosing of powdered activated carbon (PAC) prior to UF have already shown promising potential for the abatement of PPCPs; however, the inline dosing PAC is infeasible in rural areas [37]. In this study, the BAC prior to UF enhanced the biological activity by forming a two-stage biofilm system. Therefore, the integrated BAC-UF process can be considered as an economically and technically feasible approach to the decentralized and emer-gency drinking water treatment.
Please add a comparative profile section to compare your results and prove how it better than previous.