A reactor system combining reductive dechlorination with cometabolic oxidation for complete degradation of tetrachloroentylene

A laboratory sequential anaerobic-aerobic bioreactor system, which consisted of an anaerobic fixed film reactor and two aerobic chemostats, was set up to degrade tetrachloroethylene (PCE) without accumulating highly toxic degradation intermediates. A soil enrichment culture, which could reductively dechlorinate 900/zM ( ca. 150 mg/L) of PCE stoichiometrically into cis-l, 2-dichloroethylene ( cis-DCE), was attached to ceramic media in the anaerobic fixed film reactor. A phenol degrading strain, Alcaligenes sp. 115, which can efficiently degrade cis-DCE by co-metabolic oxidation, was used as inocuhim for the aerobic chemostats consisted of a transformation reactor and a growth reactor.The anaerobic fixed film bioreactor showed more than 99 % of PCE transformation into cis-DCE in the range of influent PCE concentration from 5μM to 35μM at hydraulic retention time of 48h. On the other hand, efficient degradation of the resultant cis-DCE by strain R5 in the following aerobic system could not be achieved due to oxygen limitation. However, 54% of the maximum cis-DCE degradation was obtained when 10μmol of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2 ) was supplemented to the transformation reactor as an additional oxygen source. Further studies are needed to achieve more efficient co-metabolic degradation of cis-DCE in the aerobic reactor.