Kinetics of trichloroethylene and toluene toxicity to Pseudomonas putida F1

Addition of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 to the Dehalococcoides-containing culture enhances the trichloroethene dechlorination

Dehalococcoides is able to completely dehalogenate tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE) to ethene (ETH). However, the dechlorination efficiency of Dehalococcoides is low and result in the accumulation of toxic intermediates. In this study, Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 (S. oneidensis MR-1) was added to the Dehalococcoides-containing culture and the complete TCE to ETH dechlorination was shortened from 24 days to 16 days. Dehalococcoides-targeted 16S rRNA gene and two model reductive dehalogenase (RDase) genes (tceA and vcrA), responsible for dechlorinating TCE to vinyl chloride (VC) and VC to ETH respectively, were characterized. Results showed that S. oneidensis MR-1 has no effect on the cell growth while the RDase genes expression was up-regulated and the RDase activity of Dehalococcoides was elevated. The mRNA abundance of vcrA increased approximately tenfold along with the increased concentration of vitamin B₁₂ (cyanocobalamin). Interestingly, the addition of S. oneidensis MR-1 increased the concentration of vitamin B₁₂ by affecting the microbial community structure. Therefore, the addition of S. oneidensis MR-1 might have a positive effect on regulating the activity of RDase of functional microorganisms and uptake of vitamin B₁₂, and further provided a practical vision of chloroethene dechlorination by the Dehalococcoides-containing culture.

Interaction of perchlorate and trichloroethene bioreductions in mixed anaerobic culture

This work evaluated the interaction of perchlorate and trichloroethene (TCE), two common co-contaminants in groundwater, during bioreduction in serum bottles containing synthetic mineral salts media and microbial consortia. TCE at concentrations up to 0.3mM did not significantly affect perchlorate reduction; however, perchlorate concentrations higher than 0.1mM made the reduction of TCE significantly slower. Perchlorate primarily inhibited the reduction of vinyl chloride (VC, a daughter product of TCE) to ethene. Mechanistic analysis showed that the inhibition was mainly because perchlorate reduction is thermodynamically more favorable than reduction of TCE and its daughter products and not because of toxicity due to accumulation of dissolved oxygen produced during perchlorate reduction. As the initial perchlorate concentration increased from 0 to 600mg/L in a set of serum bottles, the relative abundance of Rhodocyclaceae (a putatively perchlorate-reducing genus) increased from 6.3 to 80.6%, while the relative abundance of Dehalococcoides, the only known genus that is able to reduce TCE all the way to ethene, significantly decreased. Similarly, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria (a phylum to which most known perchlorate-reducing bacteria belong) increased from 22% to almost 80%.

Enhanced Retention of Chemotactic Bacteria in a Pore Network with Residual NAPL Contamination

Nonaqueous-phase liquid (NAPL) contaminants are difficult to eliminate from natural aquifers due, in part, to the heterogeneous structure of the soil. Chemotaxis enhances the mixing of bacteria with contaminant sources in low-permeability regions, which may not be readily accessible by advection and dispersion alone. A microfluidic device was designed to mimic heterogeneous features of a contaminated groundwater aquifer. NAPL droplets (toluene) were trapped within a fine pore network, and bacteria were injected through a highly conductive adjacent macrochannel. Chemotactic bacteria (Pseudomonas putida F1) exhibited greater accumulation near the pore network at 0.5 m/day than both the nonchemotactic control and the chemotactic bacteria at a higher groundwater velocity of 5 m/day. Chemotactic bacteria accumulated in the vicinity of NAPL droplets, and the accumulation was 15% greater than a nonchemotactic mutant. Indirect evidence showed that chemotactic bacteria were retained within the contaminated low-permeability region longer than nonchemotactic bacteria at 0.25 m/day. This retention was diminished at 5 m/day. Numerical solutions of the bacterial-transport equations were consistent with the experimental results. Because toluene is degraded by P. putida F1, the accumulation of chemotactic bacteria around NAPL sources is expected to increase contaminant consumption and improve the efficiency of bioremediation.

Motile Geobacter dechlorinators migrate into a model source zone of trichloroethene dense non-aqueous phase liquid: experimental evaluation and modeling

Microbial migration towards a trichloroethene (TCE) dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) could facilitate the bioaugmentation of TCE DNAPL source zones. This study characterized the motility of the Geobacter dechlorinators in a TCE to cis-dichloroethene dechlorinating KB-1(™) subculture. No chemotaxis towards or away from TCE was found using an agarose in-plug bridge method. A second experiment placed an inoculated aqueous layer on top of a sterile sand layer and showed that Geobacter migrated several centimeters in the sand layer in just 7days. A random motility coefficient for Geobacter in water of 0.24±0.02cm(2)·day(-1) was fitted. A third experiment used a diffusion-cell setup with a 5.5cm central sand layer separating a DNAPL from an aqueous top layer as a model source zone to examine the effect of random motility on TCE DNAPL dissolution. With top layer inoculation, Geobacter quickly colonized the sand layer, thereby enhancing the initial TCE DNAPL dissolution flux. After 19days, the DNAPL dissolution enhancement was only 24% lower than with an homogenous inoculation of the sand layer. A diffusion-motility model was developed to describe dechlorination and migration in the diffusion-cells. This model suggested that the fast colonization of the sand layer by Geobacter was due to the combination of random motility and growth on TCE.

Coupled effects of chemotaxis and growth on traveling bacterial waves

Traveling bacterial waves are capable of improving contaminant remediation in the subsurface. It is fairly well understood how bacterial chemotaxis and growth separately affect the formation and propagation of such waves. However, their interaction is not well understood. We therefore perform a modeling study to investigate the coupled effects of chemotaxis and growth on bacterial migration, and examine their effects on contaminant remediation. We study the waves by using different initial electron acceptor concentrations for different bacteria and substrate systems. Three types of traveling waves can occur: a chemotactic wave due to the biased movement of chemotactic bacteria resulting from metabolism-generated substrate concentration gradients; a growth/decay/motility wave due to a dynamic equilibrium between bacterial growth, decay and random motility; and an integrated wave due to the interaction between bacterial chemotaxis and growth. Chemotaxis hardly enhances the bacterial propagation if it is too weak to form a chemotactic wave or its wave speed is less than half of the growth/decay/motility wave speed. However, chemotaxis significantly accelerates bacterial propagation once its wave speed exceeds the growth/decay/motility wave speed. When convection occurs, it speeds up the growth/decay/motility wave but slows down or even eliminates the chemotactic wave due to the dispersion. Bacterial survival proves particularly important for bacterial propagation. Therefore we develop a conceptual model to estimate the speed of growth/decay/motility waves.

Treatment of co-mingled benzene, toluene and TCE in groundwater

This work addressed a hypothetical but practical scenario that includes biological oxidation and reductive dechlorination in treating groundwater containing co-mingled plume of trichloroethene (TCE), benzene and toluene. Groundwater immediately downgradient from the commonly used zero-valent iron (ZVI) has shown alkaline pH (up to 10.7). The elevated pH may influence BTEX compounds (i.e., benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylenes) biodegradation, which could also be inhibited by elevated concentrations of TCE. Data from this work suggests that the inhibition coefficients (IC) value for 100 μg/L and 500 μg/L of TCE on benzene and toluene degradation are 2.1-2.8 at pH 7.9, and 3.5-6.1 at pH 10.5. For a co-mingled plume, it appears to be more effective to reduce TCE by ZVI before addressing benzene and toluene biodegradation. The ample buffering capacity of most groundwater and the adaptation of benzene and toluene-degrading microbes are likely able to eliminate the adverse influence of pH shifts downgradient from a ZVI-PRB.

Inhibition of Geobacter dechlorinators at elevated trichloroethene concentrations is explained by a reduced activity rather than by an enhanced cell decay

Microbial dechlorination of trichloroethene (TCE) is inhibited at elevated TCE concentrations. A batch experiment and modeling analysis were performed to examine whether this self-inhibition is related to an enhanced cell decay or a reduced dechlorination activity at increasing TCE concentrations. The batch experiment combined four different initial TCE concentrations (1.4-3.0 mM) and three different inoculation densities (4.0 × 10(5) to 4.0 × 10(7)Geobacter cells·mL(-1)). Chlorinated ethene concentrations and Geobacter 16S rRNA gene copy numbers were measured. The time required for complete conversion of TCE to cis-DCE increased with increasing initial TCE concentration and decreasing inoculation density. Both an enhanced decay and a reduced activity model fitted the experimental results well, although the reduced activity model better described the lag phase and microbial decay in some treatments. In addition, the reduced activity model succeeded in predicting the reactivation of the dechlorination reaction in treatments in which the inhibiting TCE concentration was lowered after 80 days. In contrast, the enhanced decay model predicted a Geobacter cell density that was too low to allow recovery for these treatments. Conclusively, our results suggest that TCE self-inhibition is related to a reduced dechlorination activity rather than to an enhanced cell decay at elevated TCE concentrations.

Transverse chemotactic migration of bacteria from high to low permeability regions in a dual permeability microfluidic device

Low permeability regions such as clay lenses are difficult to remediate using conventional treatment methods. Bacterial chemotaxis (directed migration toward a contaminant source) may be helpful in enhancing bioremediation of such contaminated sites. This study experimentally simulates a two-dimensional dual-permeability groundwater contamination scenario using a microfluidic device (MFD) and evaluates transverse chemotactic migration of bacteria from high to low permeability regions under various flow velocities. Chemotaxis of Escherichia coli (E. coli) HCB33 to the chemoattractant dl-aspartic acid was quantified in terms of change in total bacterial counts in pore throats in low permeability regions containing attractant. An increase in total bacterial counts, ranging from 1.09 to 1.74 times, was observed in low permeability regions in experiments under chemotactic conditions. Experiments with no attractant showed no increase in total bacterial counts in low permeability regions. A large increase in bacterial counts in the pore throats just outside the low permeability region was also observed in chemotaxis experiments. The bacterial chemotactic response was observed to decrease linearly with increase in flow velocity, with no observed response at the highest flow velocity (Darcy velocity = 0.22 mm/s), where chemotaxis was offset by advective flow.

Transverse mixing enhancement due to bacterial random motility in porous microfluidic devices

Bacterial swimming in groundwater may create flow disturbances in the surrounding microenvironment thereby enhancing contaminant mixing. Porous microfluidic devices (MFDs) were fabricated in three different pore geometry designs: uniform grain size with large pore throats (MFD-I), nonuniform grain size with restricted pore space (MFD-II), and uniform grain size with small pore throats (MFD-III). Escherichia coli HCB33 was used to assess the effect of bacterial random motility on transverse mixing of a tracer, fluorescent labeled dextran, under three experimental conditions in which motile bacteria, nonmotile bacteria, and plain buffer suspensions were flown through the MFDs at four different flow rates. Mixing was quantified in terms of the best-fit effective transverse dispersion coefficient ((D(cy))(eff)). A mixing enhancement index (MEI) was defined as the ratio of the (D(cy))(eff) of tracer in experiments with motile bacteria and without bacteria. Motile bacteria caused a maximum 5-6 fold increase in MEI in MFD-II, a nearly 4-fold increase in MFD-I, and very little observed change in MFD-III. The apparent transverse dispersivities (α(app)) of MFD-II and MFD-I increased by 3 and 2.3 times, respectively, with no change in MFD-III. These observations indicate that both pore throat size and pore arrangement are critical factors for contaminant mixing in porous media.