The anaerobic decomposition of benzoic acid during methane fermentation. II. Fate of carbons one and seven

Heat treatment of organics for increasing anaerobic biodegradability. Annual progress report, June 1, 1976-May 31, 1977. Civil engineering technical report No. 222

“…Tarvin and Buswell (1934) obtained mixed cultures from sewage sludge which fermented a range of aromatic compounds to a mixture of C02 and CH4. Clark and Fina (1952) and Fina and Fiskin (1960) used a mixed culture from sewage sludge or rumen fluid and confirmed that benzoate was metabolized to a mixture of C02 and CH4. Barker (1956) described studies in which several aromatic acids were utilized under strictly anaerobic conditions by a heterogeneous population of methanogenic bacteria.…”

“…Mass balances have played a big part in most of the investigations of the methanogenic degradation of simple aromatic compounds (Tarvin and Buswell, 1934;Clark and Fina, 1952;Fina and Fiskin, 1960;Chmielowski et al, 1964;Nottingham and Hungate, 1969;and Ferry and Wolfe, 1976). Chmielowski et al (1964) demonstrated that phenol, p-cresol, resorcinol, and a combination of …”

Methanogenic transformation of aromatic hydrocarbons and phenols in groundwater aquifers

“…Reductive dehydroxylation is an energy-yielding process and is therefore beneficial for the microbial community (Schink and Tschech, 1988). At the level of benzoyl-Co-A, the phenol pathway would connect to the fermentative benzoate transformation pathway (Clark and Fina, 1952;Fina and Fiskin, 1960;Mountfort and Bryant, 1982;Mountfort et al, 1984), which further proceeds presumably through ring reduction to cyclohexanecarboxyl-Co-A and culminates in ring cleavage and /3-oxidation of the aliphatic product (pimelyl-Co-A) to yield acetate and CO 2 (see Fig. 2).…”

The Microbiological Degradation of Aromatic Compounds

“…Clarke & Fina (1952) confirmed the utilization of benzoate by methane-producing cultures; catechol and protocatechuate could not be metabolized by these cultures, and exogenous CO, was not reduced mainly to methane. In subsequent tracer studies (Fina & Fiskin, 1960;Roberts, 1962) it was determined that the carboxyl-C and C4 of benzoate behaved the same as exogenous CO,. They were not reduced to methane primarily; on the other hand, C 1 of the ring was converted almost entirely t o methane.…”