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Aerobic degradation study of three fluoroanilines and microbial community analysis: the effects of increased fluorine substitution

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Abstract

The fate of fluorinated compounds in the environment, especially polyfluorinated aromatics, is a matter of great concern. In this work, 4-Fluoroaniline (4-FA), 2,4-Difluoroanilines (2,4-DFA), and 2,3,4-Trifluoroanilines (2,3,4-TFA), were chosen as the target pollutants to study their biodegradability under aerobic conditions. The required enriched time of the mixed bacterial culture for degrading 4-FA, 2,4-DFA, and 2,3,4-TFA was 26, 51, and 165 days, respectively, which suggested that the longer enrichment time was required with the increase of fluorine substitution. At the initial concentrations of 100–200 mg L−1, the 4-FA, 2,4-DFA, and 2,3,4-TFA could be degraded completely by the mixed bacterial culture. The maximum specific degradation rates of 4-FA, 2,4-DFA, and 2,3,4-TFA were 22.48 ± 0.55, 15.27 ± 2.04, and 8.84 ± 0.93 mg FA (g VSS h)−1, respectively. Also, the three FAs enriched cultures showed certain potential of degrading other two FAs. The results from enzyme assay suggested the expression of meta-cleavage pathways during three FAs degradation. The denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis revealed that unique bacterial communities were formed after FAs enrichment and these were principally composed of β-Proteobacteria, Oscillatoriophycideae, δ-Proteobacteria, α-Proteobacteria, Thermales, Xanthomonadales, Deinococci, Flavobacteriia, and Actinobacteridae. The Shannon-Wiener indexes in three FAs enriched culture decreased with the increase of fluorine substitution, indicating the significant effect of fluorine substitution on the microbial diversity. These findings supply important information on the fate of three FAs under aerobic environment, and the bacterial communities in their degradation systems.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by Science and Technology Plan Projects of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province with Grant No. 2013C33004, Project of education department, zhejiang provice with Grant No.Y201430857, and Science and Technology Plan Projects of Quzhou University with Grant NO. KY1301.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environment and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Zhi-Qing Zhao, Bao-Hu Tian, Xuan Zhang, Abbas Ghulam & Dong-Sheng Shen

  2. College of Chemical and Material Engineering, Quzhou University, Quzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Zhi-Qing Zhao & Tu-Cai Zheng

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan

    Abbas Ghulam

  4. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Dong-Sheng Shen

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  1. Zhi-Qing Zhao
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Zhao, ZQ., Tian, BH., Zhang, X. et al. Aerobic degradation study of three fluoroanilines and microbial community analysis: the effects of increased fluorine substitution. Biodegradation 26, 1–14 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-014-9704-3

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