Journal of the Korean Geo-Environmental Society ISSN:1598-0820(Print) 2714-1233(Online) 한국지반환경공학회 논문집

The objectives of this study were to determine biodegradation and characteristics of BTEX and MTBE under aerovic-anaerobic conditions and evaluate the potential of natural attenuation method in denitrifying condition.. In the single-substrate experiments, all of the BTEX compounds were degraded under all the conditions. but, lower degradation of benzene and p-xylene were observed under aerobic condition due to the lack of oxygen initially supplied. In the mixed-substrate experiments, BTEX degradation was delayed compared to that in the single-substrate experiments due to a competition of the substrates. Biodegradation of MTBE was observed only under denitrifying conditions and we expected that MTBE mineralized to CO2 without the accumulation of TBA. We also conducted to determine the effect of initial nitrate concentration on BTEX and MTBE degradation. At low nitrate concentration (<50 mg/L), BTEX degradations were limited by the lack of electron acceptor and BTEX degradation was inhibited at high nitrate concentration (>200 mg/L). The results in this study indicated that biotransformation could be applied to the gasoline-contaminated region under aerovic-anaerobic.