Effects of Composition and Domain Arrangement of Biopolymer Components of Soil Organic Matter on the Bioavailability of Phenanthrene

Abstract

Bioavailability of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) is an important factor affecting their fate in the environment. Molecular-level HOC-soil organic matter (SOM) interactions and associated impacts on its bioavailability were investigated in this study. Our results showed that, phenanthrene (PHE) was mainly sequestrated in aromatic domains of lignin, as indicated by liquid-state (1)H-(13)C heteronuclear multiple quantum coherence (HMQC) NMR along with solid-state (13)C NMR data and information on surface domain distribution of this biopolymer as shown by its X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic data. Here, surface domain distribution was defined as the relative abundance of sorption domains at the surfaces versus that in the bulky biopolymer particles and their spatial positions. Wax had much higher sorption for PHE than cellulose, but no striking difference in degradability of wax- and cellulose-sorbed PHE was observed, which can be ascribed to much more hydrophobic surface of wax relative to that of cellulose, making it more favorable for bacteria PYR-1 attachment. This work highlighted the joint effects of functionalities and surface domain distribution of SOM on bioavailability of HOCs (e.g., PHE).

Role of extractable and residual organic matter fractions on sorption of phenanthrene in sediments

“…The latter possibility seems to be supported by the occurrence of N-containing compounds (average N $ 3.2%) in the LG isolates, which were supposed to contain no N. However, for the degraded lignin, amid functional groups can be added to the aromatic carbon in lignin during humification (Schmidt-Rohr et al, 2004). Moreover, the contents of C and O in the LG isolates were much close to the values for the reported lignin in the other studies, while H contents were slightly higher than their values (Xing et al, 1994;Chefetz et al, 2000;Wang et al, 2007b;Yang et al, 2010). Furthermore, a van Krevelen diagram (Fig.…”

Biosorption of phenanthrene by pure algae and field-collected planktons and their fractions

“…As one of the processes in bioremediation, biosorption plays a significant role in the removal of PAHs. In recent studies, biosorption employing microorganisms to eliminate PAHs from the contaminated environment has been proposed (Christensen and Rorrer, 2009;Chen et al, 2010;Yang et al, 2010a;Olivella et al, 2012). Many types of biosorbents (e.g., fungi, bacteria, algae and plant cuticle) were investigated for their ability to sequester heavy metals, dyes, pesticides, and organic pollutants (Aksu, 2005;Chen et al, 2005;Wu and Yu, 2006;Chung et al, 2007).…”

Biosorption and biodegradation of phenanthrene and pyrene in sterilized and unsterilized soil slurry systems stimulated by Phanerochaete chrysosporium

“…Bioavailability of dissolved and sorbed HOCs to microorganisms has been identified as major limitation to the effectiveness of bioremediation of contaminated soils [3,7,8,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Previous studies have suggested that soil-sorbed HOCs are not directly available for biodegradation without prior desorption to pore water [10][11][12].…”

“…Previous studies have suggested that soil-sorbed HOCs are not directly available for biodegradation without prior desorption to pore water [10][11][12]. However, other researchers have shown that sorbed HOCs can be directly degraded by microorganisms via attached cells, or at least that desorption into bulk solution is not a prerequisite for biodegradation [7,[13][14][15][16][17]. Two possible explanations were offered for the experimental observations of bioavailability of soilsorbed HOCs [12,14,18,19].…”