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Bioaugmentation of the phyllosphere for the removal of toluene from indoor air

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Abstract

The removal of airborne toluene by means of the phyllosphere of Azalea indica augmented with a toluene-degrading enrichment culture of Pseudomonas putida TVA8 was studied. The 95% disappearance time [DT95%; the time in which an initial toluene concentration of 90 ppmv (339 mg.m3) was removed in a batch experiment] was 75 h for Azalea plants. Under the same experimental conditions, DT95% of inoculated Azalea plants decreased remarkably to about 27 h. Subsequent additions of toluene further increased the removal efficiency of the bioaugmented system (DT95% decreased by a factor of four). A decrease in DT95% was also recorded after repeated incubations of non-inoculated plants, but the toluene-removal rate was remarkably low, compared with the inoculated plants. Hence, inoculation of the leaf surface appeared essential for obtaining rapid removal rates. It was not possible to obtain comparable and sustained removal of airborne toluene by inoculating artificial plant surfaces. This is, to our knowledge, the first report on bioaugmentation of the leaf surface of plants to remove gaseous pollutants from air. The results presented are promising and could be of great practical importance in the field of indoor air pollution control.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Fund for Scientific Research, Flanders, Belgium. The authors wish to thank Sofie Dobbelaere, Geert Lissens, Joris Roels and Tom Vandewiele for reviewing the manuscript. The experiments comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology (LabMET), Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    L. De Kempeneer, W. Vanbrabant & W. Verstraete

  2. Environmental Organic Chemistry and Technology Research Group (ENVOC), Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    B. Sercu & H. Van Langenhove

Authors
  1. L. De Kempeneer
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  2. B. Sercu
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  3. W. Vanbrabant
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  4. H. Van Langenhove
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  5. W. Verstraete
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Correspondence to W. Verstraete.

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De Kempeneer, L., Sercu, B., Vanbrabant, W. et al. Bioaugmentation of the phyllosphere for the removal of toluene from indoor air. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 64, 284–288 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-003-1415-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-003-1415-3

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