Mechanism of anaerobic degradation of triethanolamine by a homoacetogenic bacterium

Microbiota in a cooling-lubrication circuit and an option for controlling triethanolamine biodegradation

Cooling and lubrication agents like triethanolamine (TEA) are essential for many purposes in industry. Due to biodegradation, they need continuous replacement, and byproducts of degradation may be toxic. This study investigates an industrial (1,200 m³) cooling-lubrication circuit (CLC) that has been in operation for 20 years and is supposedly in an ecological equilibrium, thus offering a unique habitat. Next-generation (Illumina Miseq 16S rRNA amplicon) sequencing was used to profile the CLC-based microbiota and relate it to TEA and bicine dynamics at the sampling sites, influent, machine rooms, biofilms and effluent. Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes dominated the effluent and influent sites, while Alcaligenes faecalis dominated biofilms, and both species were identified as the major TEA degrading bacteria. It was shown that a 15 min heat treatment at 50°C was able to slow down the growth of both species, a promising option to control TEA degradation at large scale.

Phytodegradation of Ethanolamines by Cyperus alternifolius: Effect of Molecular Size

Our screening of plants showed that Cyperus alternifolius (Umbrella papyrus) had the highest efficiency removal in real wastewater containing monoethanolamine-higher than Echinodorus cordifolius (Creeping Burrhead), Thalia geniculata (Alligator Flag), Acorus calamus (Sweet Flag), and Dracaena sanderiana (Lucky Bamboo). Therefore, this research studied the degradation of monoethanolamine (MEA), diethanolamine (DEA), and triethanolamine (TEA) by C. alternifolius. Plants could degrade TEA into DEA, then into MEA, and then further into acetic acid. The accumulation of ethanolamines was found mainly in plant stems, which had the highest biomass. This demonstrated that the molecular size is closely related to a diffusion coefficient that affects the removal rate through plant bodies. A smaller molecular weight-MEA (MW = 61.08 g mol(-1))-was taken up the fastest, followed by DEA (MW = 105.14 g mol(-1)) and TEA (MW = 149.19 g mol(-1)), the highest molecular weight. The plants' toxicity when exposed to ethanolamines elucidated that MEA had the highest toxicity, followed by DEA and TEA. In addition, the application of C. alternifolius in monoethanolamine-contaminated wastewater revealed that plant could completely uptake MEA at day 5 from an initial MEA concentration of 18 mM. The result indicated that C. alternifolius has the potential to remove ethanolamines and can be applied to ethanolamine-contaminated wastewater.

Activated sludge-mediated biodegradation of dimethyl phthalate under fermentative conditions

The biodegradation of dimethyl phthalate (DMP) was investigated under fermentative conditions in this study. The nature of the intermediate compounds and the extent of mineralization were probed using high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) methods. The fermentative bacteria were able to biodegrade the DMP under anaerobic conditions, with the biodegradation rate of 0.36 mg DMP/(L x h). The results demonstrated that the DMP degradation under fermentative conditions followed the modified Gompertz model with the correlation coefficient of 0.99. Monomethyl phthalate (MMP) and phthalic acid (PA) were detected as the intermediates of DMP biodegradation. During the experiment, MMP was rapidly produced and removed; however, PA accumulated as the biodegradation was slower throughout the course of the experiment. The COD(Cr) concentration decreased from 245.06 to 72.01 mg/L after the experimental operation of 20 d. The volume of methane produced was 3.65 ml over a period of 20 d and the amount of methane recovered corresponded to 40.2% of the stoichiometric value. The COD(Cr) variation and methane production showed that the DMP could not be completely mineralized under the fermentative conditions, which implied that the fermentative bacteria were not able to biodegrade DMP entirely.