In this study, optimization conditions for cyanide biodegradation by Klebsiella pneumoniae strain were determined to be 25 °C, pH=7 and 150 rpm at the concentration of 0.5 mM potassium cyanide in the medium. Additionally, it was found that K. pneumoniae strain is not only able to degrade potassium cyanide, but also to degrade potassium hexacyanoferrate(II) trihydrate and sodium ferrocyanide dec...

To develop an active microbial activity quickly developing stabilizing thermophilic temperatures during the composting of wastewater sludge, the bulking agent (BA) plays a major role in establishing the recipe structure, exposed particle surface area and porosity. To optimize the biodegradation of a sludge compost recipe, the objective of this paper was to study the effect and interaction of in...

Compounds characterized by a slow degradation rate in the environment, i.e. resistant to biodegradation, and photolysis processes, are classified as persistent and have often been considered as potential environmental problems. A more exacting approach recognizes that a compound released to the environment has a tendency to accumulate in one medium more than in others. Hence, partitioning, tran...

Background Paclobutrazol is a regulator of vegetal growth that remains active in the soil and can affect the growth and the development of subsequent cultures. Experiments in two soils (A and B) with and without addition of inoculum or mineral medium were performed to investigate the biodegradation of paclobutrazol. The inoculum contained a mixed culture of three strains of bacteria isolated by...

Exploiting microorganisms for remediation of waste sites is a promising alternative to groundwater pumping and above ground treatment. The objective of in situ bioremediation is to stimulate the growth of indigenous or introduced microorganisms in regions of subsurface contamination, and thus to provide direct contact between microorganisms and the dissolved and sorbed contaminants for biotrans...

The continuous accumulation of recalcitrant xenobiotic compounds into the ecosystem released from various sources caused a serious global concern. Xenobiotics compounds are carcinogenic, mutagenic, causing teratogenic effect and persist over a long period of time in the environment. Therefore there is an urgent need for the detoxification of these compounds. Biodegradation is a technique that e...

Forty percent of hazardous waste sites in the United States are co-contaminated with organic and metal pollutants. Data from both aerobic and anaerobic systems demonstrate that biodegradation of the organic component can be reduced by metal toxicity. Metal bioavailability, determined primarily by medium composition/soil type and pH, governs the extent to which metals affect biodegradation. Fail...

Pure iron has been demonstrated as a potential candidate for biodegradable metal stents due to its appropriate biocompatibility, suitable mechanical properties and uniform biodegradation behavior. The competing parameters that control the safety and the performance of BMS include proper strength-ductility combination, biocompatibility along with matching rate of corrosion with healing rate of a...

The microalga Scenedesmus obliquus exhibited the ability to biodegrade dichlorophenols (dcps) under specific autotrophic and mixotrophic conditions. According to their biodegradability, the dichlorophenols used can be separated into three distinct groups. Group I (2,4-dcp and 2,6 dcp - no meta-substitution) consisted of quite easily degraded dichlorophenols, since both chloride substituents are...

A procedure for the optimization of an unstructured first-order kinetics model of cyclically operated biological reactors for the biodegradation of a single pollutant is developed using a combination of analytical and numerical tools. Asymptotic analytical profiles for the substrate and biomass for each steady cycle are obtained that allows the formulation of an analytical design equation that ...