SONG Jiaxiu¹, LIU Hong², ZHANG Yongming³

(Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China)

Abstract: Porous ceramics were used as carriers of phenol degrading bacteria for phenol biodegradation. Experimental results suggest that the biodegradability of the phenol degrading bacteria exposed to UV irradiation was the same as that of the unexposed bacteria. But their phenol mineralization degree was increased by 2.1 times when UV irradiation was coupled with biodegradation compared with biodegradation alone. Molecular biological analysis documents that the microbiological community inside macro-pores exposed to UV irradiation was consistent with the one unexposed to UV irradiation. Survival of bacteria inside macro-pores demonstrated that being in a microbiological community inside the porous ceramic carriers protected the bacteria from UV-light toxicity.

Key words: porous ceramic carrier; phenol degrading bacteria; UV irradiation