Research Information System
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, vol.40, no.14, pp.4467-4472, 2006 (SCI-Expanded)
The microbial reductive dechlorination kinetics of pentachloroaniline (PCA) and less chlorinated anilines (CAs) were investigated with a mixed, fermentative/methanogenic culture. Batch dechlorination assays were performed with all available CAs at an initial concentration of 3 mu M, and an incubation temperature of 22 degrees. Dechlorination of PCA, two tetrachloroanilines (2,3,4,5-, and 2,3,5,6-TeCA), five trichloroanilines (2,3,4-, 2,3,5-, 2,4,5-, 2,4,6-, and 3,4,5-TrCA), and one dichloroaniline (3,5-DCA; low extent) was observed but none of the five remaining dichloroanilines and three monochloroanilines were dechlorinated by the enrichment culture during batch assays. The dechlorination rates (k') and half-saturation coefficients (K-C) were measured using nonlinear regression based on the integrated Michaelis-Menten equation under conditions of electron donor saturation and assuming constant biomass concentration over the relatively short batch incubation period. At an initial concentration of CAs of about 3 mu M, the values of k' and K-C ranged from 0.25 to 1.19 mu M/day and from 0.11 to 1.72 mu M, respectively, corresponding to half-lives in the range of 1.5-8.5 days. Model simulations of the sequential dechlorination reactions based on a branched-chain Michaelis-Menten model and using independently measured k' and K-C values matched the experimental data very well.