Biodegradation of Phenol by Curtobacteriumflaccumfaciens: Optimizationof Growth Conditions

Phenol is one of the most important environmental pollutants that are found in sewage and industrial water from which agricultural lands are irrigated. In this study Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens bacterium was isolated in pure culture from phenol-uncontaminated farmland soil. Its ability to biodegrade phenol was examined. C. flaccumfaciens demonstrated its ability to use phenol as a source of carbon and energy in batch cultures. The isolated strain was able to completely biodegrade 700 mg/L phenol in a reasonable incubation period (96 h). However, these bacteria were able to completely remove 700 mg/L of phenol in a reasonable incubation period (96 h). The degradation rate of phenol was 19.4 ppm/h. However, they also endured higher concentrations than 1200 mg/L, but had a lower biodegradation rate because of cytotoxicity generated by phenol concentration of more than 700 Mg/L. It was observed that the biodegradation process of phenol occurred at pH 7.0 to obtain maximum degradation of phenol by C. flaccumfaciens. In addition, the biodegradation of phenols occurred over a large range of incubation temperature (25 to 37 degrees C) where 28 degrees C was the optimum incubation temperature for C. flaccumfaciens cells for phenol biodegradation. Since this is, the first study related to the use of C. flaccumfaciens in the biodegradation process of phenol, more works need to be done, whether from a biochemical or molecular biology point of view.