Microbiological degradation of phenol using two co-aggregating bacterial strains

Abstract

Phenol biodegradation in an aerobic batch reactor was investigated using mixed two co-aggregating strains (Flavobacterium sp. and Acetobacter sp.). Response surface methodology by the Box–Behnken model was used to evaluate the optimal cell growth and phenol degradation conditions. The optimum temperature, pH value and inoculum size were found to be 33 °C, 6.06 and 13 %, respectively. In the conditions, phenol degradation rate and biomass were predicted to be 96.97 % and 410.78 mg/L within the range examined, respectively. Less toxic acetaldehyde, ethanol and acetic ether were identified as main intermediate products from the degraded samples using GC–MS. Substrate inhibition was calculated from experimental biomass growth and phenol degradation parameters using the Haldane equation. Kinetic parameters derived from nonlinear regression with correlation factors (R ²) were 0.9682 for phenol degradation and 0.9594 for biomass growth, respectively. The phenol concentration to avoid substrate inhibition was 278.17 mg/L.