Bioremediation of MTBE: a review from a practical perspective

Biodegradation - Tập 11 - Trang 187-201 - 2000
Andrew J. Stocking1, Rula A. Deeb2,3, Amparo E. Flores1, William Stringfellow4, Jeffrey Talley5, Richard Brownell6, Michael C. Kavanaugh1
1Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., Oakland, USA
2Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, USA
3Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., Oakland
4Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA
5Environmental Laboratory, US Army Corp of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), MS: CEWES-EF-R, Vicksburg, USA
6Malcolm Pirnie Inc, White Plains, USA

Tóm tắt

The addition of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) to gasoline has resulted in public uncertainty regarding the continued reliance on biological processes for gasoline remediation. Despite this concern, researchers have shown that MTBE can be effectively degraded in the laboratory under aerobic conditions using pure and mixed cultures with half-lives ranging from 0.04 to 29 days. Ex-situ aerobic fixed-film and aerobic suspended growth bioreactor studies have demonstrated decreases in MTBE concentrations of 83% and 96% with hydraulic residence times of 0.3 hrs and 3 days, respectively. In microcosm and field studies, aerobic biodegradation half-lives range from 2 to 693 days. These half-lives have been shown to decrease with increasing dissolved oxygen concentrations and, in some cases, with the addition of exogenous MTBE-degraders. MTBE concentrations have also been observed to decrease under anaerobic conditions; however, these rates are not as well defined. Several detailed field case studies describing the use of ex-situ reactors, natural attenuation, and bioaugmentation are presented in this paper and demonstrate the potential for successful remediation of MTBE-contaminated aquifers. In conclusion, a substantial amount of literature is available which demonstratesthat the in-situ biodegradation of MTBE is contingent on achieving aerobic conditions in the contaminated aquifer.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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