Microbial degradation is an established process for the treatment of organic pollutants due to its low operation cost, no secondary pollution, and other advantages. The first step of microbial biodegradation is the adsorption of pollutants on the microorganisms'surface, which is determined by the microorganism type and pollutant hydrophobicity. A fungal strain Ophiostoma stenoceras LLC and a bacterial strain Pseudomonas veronii ZW, which can both degrade α-pinene, were used for the evaluation of their different cell surfaces and adsorption characteristics. Results showed that the fungus exhibited higher cell surface hydrophobicity than the bacterium under the same culture conditions. Ophiostoma sp. exhibited higher adsorption than Pseudomonas sp. to organic compounds such as tetrahydrofuran, ethyl acetate, chlorobenzene, cyclohexene, cyclohexane and n-hexane in aqueous phase. Langmuir equation was found to fit the data well. The maximum adsorption capacity was determined for tetrahydrofuran (69.06 mg/g), ethyl acetate (58.24 mg/g), chlorobenzene (47.6 mg/g), cyclohexene (35.1 mg/g), cyclohexane (29.33 mg/g) and n-hexane (26.56 mg/g) by Langmuir fitting. Phase partition coefficients of different VOCs for these two microorganisms were determined with the fungal strain Ophiostoma sp. exhibiting a smaller coefficient. Furthermore, the specific surface area and average pore diameter of Ophiostoma sp. cells were larger than those of Pseudomonas sp. cells. As a result, the fungal strain had better adsorption characteristics to various organic compounds.

Analysis for cell surface characteristics of two different microorganisms and their adsorption behavior to organic compounds

256th National Meeting (2018)

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