The biodegradation of bromoamine acid (BAA) in a combined airlift loop reactor (ALR) and biological activated carbon (BAC) system was investigated. The results showed that the ALR using Sphingomonas xenophaga as inoculum and granular activated carbon (GAC) as carrier, could run steadily for over 3 months at less than 950 mg L(-1) BAA. And the efficiencies of BAA decolorization and COD removal in ALR reached about 90% and 50% within 12 h, respectively. When it was further aerated for another 12 h, the ALR effluent gradually became yellow due to the auto-oxidation of BAA decolorization products which were identified by HPLC-MS. Further biotreatment of the ALR effluent using BAC showed that the efficiency of TOC removal could reach 90%. Moreover, the release efficiencies of Br(-) and SO(4)(2-) were 73.5% and 67.4%, respectively. It indicated that BAC system was effective in the biodegradation of the auto-oxidative BAA decolorization products. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.