Comparison of sequential with intimate coupling of photolysis and biodegradation for benzotriazole

Highlights

Intimately coupling UV photolysis accelerated benzotriazone (BTA) biodegradation.

Photolysis of BTA generated four products: AP, PHZ, FA, and MA.

FA and MA accelerated BTA biodegradation, as they produced internal electron donor.

AP and PHZ slowed BTA biodegradation, as they competed for internal electron donor.

AP and PHZ did not accumulate during the intimately coupling process.

Abstract

Benzotriazole (BTA) is an emerging contaminant that also is a recalcitrant compound. Sequential and intimate coupling of UV-photolysis with biodegradation were investigated for their impacts on BTA removal and mineralization in aerobic batch experiments. Special attention was given to the role of its main photolytic products, which were aminophenol (AP), formic acid (FA), maleic acid (MA), and phenazine (PHZ). Experiments with sequential coupling showed that BTA biodegradation was accelerated by photolytic pretreatment up to 9 min, but BTA biodegradation was slowed with longer photolysis. FA and MA accelerated BTA biodegradation by being labile electron-donor substrates, but AP and PHZ slowed the rate because of inhibition due to their competition for intracellular electron donor. Because more AP and PHZ accumulated with increasing photolysis time, their inhibitory effects began to dominate with longer photolysis time. Intimately coupling photolysis with biodegradation relieved the inhibition effect, because AP and PHZ were quickly biodegraded and did not accumulate, which accentuated the beneficial effect of FA and MA.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Benzotriazole / Photolysis / Biodegradation / Inhibition / Electron donor

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the ability construction project of local Colleges and Universities in Shanghai (16070503000), Special Fund of State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (16K10ESPCT), Shanghai Gaofeng & Gaoyuan Project for University Academic Program Development (A-9103-15-065004), and the United States National Science Foundation (0651794).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11783-017-0953-3 and is accessible for authorized users.

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