Abstract:
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that, to
a varying degree, resist to photolytic, biological and chemical degradation.
POPs are often halogenated and characterized by low water solubility and
high lipid solubility. They are also semi-volatile, enabling them to move long
distances in the atmosphere before deposition occurs. Various processes take
place in soil, namely, volatilization, biodegradation, formation of strongly
bounded residues.
The main purpose of the paper was to analyze some aspects regarding
a biological remediation system for soil and ground-water contaminated with
chlorinated aromatic compounds, such as polychlorinated phenols
(pentachlorophenol and tetrachlorophenol). This objective was accomplished
through dynamic simulation based on analytical modelling under MATLAB
software.
Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is a chlorinated hydrocarbon used for its
pronounced bactericidal and fungicidal properties. The presence of
pentachlorophenol as well as of tetrachlorophenol (TCP) in the environment
is exclusively of anthropogenic origin.
The simulation of the PCP biodegradation process was performed at
different concentrations of the PCP and TCP, for that the dynamic profiles of
the PCP, TCP and biomass in the biodegradation system were analyzed. The
increasing of the PCP concentration led to increases in the biodegradation
time and steady state establishing, while the TCP concentration affected the
dynamic profile of the biomass concentration.
The results showed that the biodegradation of polychlorinated phenols
in soil can modeled and simulated, and that the process dynamics are related
to the contaminants concentration as well as to the simultaneous influence of
PCP/TCP presence.
