Aerobic and anaerobic degradation of tannic acid on water samples from Monjolinho reservoir (São Carlos, SP, Brazil).

In order to describe the transformations of tannic acid during its degradation (under aerobic and anaerobic conditions) incubations were performed. To evaluate the oxygen consumption, the tannic acid was added to 1 L of water sample from Monjolinho's reservoir (22 degrees 00'S and 47 degrees 54'W); these solutions were aerated and the dissolved oxygen was monitored for 16 days, the anaerobic process was avoided. For the anaerobic and aerobic degradation, the dissolved organic carbon and the acid tannic concentrations were estimated on the samples days. The results were fitted to first-order kinetic model, being possible to verify that during the 16 days the oxygen uptake was 3.6 mg.L-1, the deoxygenation rate (kD) of this process was 0.39 day-1. The degradation coefficients were calculated through the decay of the tannic acid and organic carbon concentrations. In the aerobic process, the global decay coefficient (kG) was 0.36 day-1 and in the anaerobic 0.28 day-1. Overall, the obtained degradation coefficients suggest that the bacterioplankton of the Monjolinho's reservoir possess a high capacity of polyphenols degradation.