Bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)-contaminated soil process evaluation through composting and anaerobic digestion approach

Descripció del recurs: el 19 setembre 2011
Among the different available remediation technologies, it is well-known that bioremediation methods which mainly depend on microorganisms to degrade, transform, detoxify or break down the contaminants, they are recognized as cost-effective and environmental-friendly methods. In fact, microorganisms “engine of bioremediation process” carry out their normal duty under aerobic or anaerobic conditions, which without doubt extends and motivates the desires to make use of such abilities to reduce environmental threats caused by various contaminants. However, to achieve satisfactory results during any bioremediation process, providing optimal conditions for microorganisms is considered as an essential/crucial task. Composting as one of the applied bioremediation technologies used to remediate soils contaminated with organic contaminants like PAHs still needs more investigation although a valuable effort has been devoted to elucidate the behaviour of this process in the remediation of PAHs-contaminated soils. However, till recently, anaerobically treatment of PAHs-contaminated soil received less attention as it was believed that PAHs are poorly or even impossible to be degraded under such conditions. Therefore, the present study tried to touch both aerobically bioremediation of PAH-contaminated soil through composting and anaerobically treatment of the same soil under strict methanogenic conditions. For both remediation approaches, the effect of some controlling factors had been also evaluated through experiment design methodology employing central design (CCD) technique. Regarding the composting process, the obtained results demonstrated that this technology is an advantageous and indisputable method to decontaminate PAHs-contaminated soils within short period. Additionally, compost derived from the organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (OFMSW) was found to enhance the contaminants (PAHs) removal rate to high extent. Moreover, a lucid correlation between the contamin