Phenol removal by newly isolated Acinetobacter baumannii strain Serdang 1 in a packed-bed column reactor

Abstract

A newly isolated Acinetobacter baumannii strain Serdang 1 was explored for its potential in phenol remediation in batch and continuous system. An immobilization cell system has been successfully developed to remove phenol in a batch system as high as 2,000 mg/L in 12 d at a rate of 6.04 mg/L/h. Repeated use of immobilized cells as many as five cycles was shown without any loss of activity. The continuous system in a packed-bed reactor achieved 65–77% phenol removal at the rate of 38.4 mg/L/h for 200 mg/L influent, which was almost three fold higher than the batch system. Low influent flow rate at 1.5 mL/min and bed height-to-diameter ratio of 15.2 reached steady state faster than the higher flow rate, and the percentage of phenol removal was also higher.

Keywords:

• Acinetobacter baumannii
• Phenol
• Bioremediation
• Packed-bed column reactor

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS for the scholarship to Zailatul Hani Mohamad Yadzir and the research facilities, and Universiti Putra Malaysia for the research facilities to carry out microbial and molecular work.