Abstract
A microbial process for the destruction of acetonitrile has been developed. Suitable microorganisms were enriched from activated sludge by cultivation with a high selection pressure when acetonitrile was the sole source of carbon and nitrogen. The process is based on cultivating the microorganisms as a biofilm on plastic carriers. These are utilised in a stirred-tank reactor with continuous feeding of 40–150 mM acetonitrile and an outlet for spent medium. The observed efficiency in the conversion process was from 53–100%, depending on the organic load. To improve the capacity and reliability of the process, a two-step process was developed with two stirred-tank reactors coupled in series. With such an arrangement, conversion efficiencies from 92–100% were achieved when the organic load was 2 g acetonitrile l−1 d−1 in the first reactor.
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Håkansson, K., Mattiasson, B. Microbial degradation of acetonitrile using a suspended-carrier biofilm process. Biotechnology Letters 24, 287–291 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014001823573
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014001823573