Enhancement of Profenofos Remediation Using Stimulated Bioaugmentation Technique

Abstract Profenofos, an organophosphorus pesticide, has been reported its contamination in groundwater. The current study emphasized on the use of integrated bioaugmentation and biostimulation techniques to enhance profenofos bioremediation. A profenofos-degrading consortium including Pseudomonas strains was chosen as a bioaugmented culture. For stimulated condition adjustment, sodium succinate as an additional organic carbon supplement (4-500 mg-carbon/L) was applied in batch experiment. Column experiment was carried out for investigating profenofos remediation with different infiltration rates and cell numbers of 25 to 100 cm/d and 105 and 1015 CFU/mL, respectively. The batch result showed that the experiment with sodium succinate supplement efficiently degraded profenofos of more than 80%. At profenofos concentrations of 20 to 120 mg/L, the profenofos degradation ranged from 85 to 91%. For the column experiment, profenofos removal was between 30 to more than 90%. The infiltration rates and microbial numbers significantly affected the profenofos degradation. Lower infiltration rates or higher cell number resulted in higher profenofos removal performance. Based on the result from this study, it indicated that the profenofos degradation by the bioaugmented consortium under stimulated condition is effective and potential for future remediation practice.