Adsorption and desorption of pentachlorophenol on cells of Mycobacterium chlorophenolicum PCP-1.

The sorption behavior of pentachlorophenol (PCP) by the Gram-positive bacterium Mycobacterium chlorophenolicum PCP-1 was quantitatively characterized in this work, with emphasis on the effects of biomass and pH and on the reversibility of PCP adsorption. Both the adsorption and desorption of PCP showed a fast kinetic, reaching an equilibrium in less than 1.5-min mixing under the experimental conditions. For PCP concentrations up to 600 micromol/L no saturation of the adsorption was observed and the adsorption isotherms can be adequately described by the Freundlich equation. The adsorption capacity (q(ads)) of M. chlorophenolicum PCP-1 increased significantly with decreasing biomass in the low concentration range (below 0.5 g/L). The biomass concentration merely affected the capacity constant K of the Freundlich model while the intensity parameter n remained constant. The q(ads) also increased with decreasing pH, particularly at acidic pH values. Again, the pH effect was mainly reflected by the change of K. Based on these results a correlation for q(ads), in which K is a function of both biomass concentration and pH, was obtained to describe the adsorption isotherms at different biomass concentrations and pH values. The desorption of PCP was also found to be strongly affected by pH. At pH 5.4 the adsorption was almost completely irreversible, while a nearly complete desorption was obtained at pH 7. The effect of pH on the sorption behavior was found to be related to the ionization of PCP. The irreversibly adsorbed PCP is a strict function of concentration of undissociated PCP, while the reversibly adsorbed PCP correlates well with the concentration of ionic PCP. The irreversible adsorption has a much higher adsorption capacity than the reversible adsorption. These findings led to the derivation of a semimechanistic model that satisfactorily describes the sorption of PCP by M. chlorophenolicum. The results obtained also give clues to the patterns and mechanism(s) of PCP adsorption by microbial cells.