Effect of Biofuels on Biodegradation of Benzene and Toluene at Gasoline Spill Sites

Ground Water Monitoring & Remediation
John T WilsonRobert L Howard

Abstract

The risk that benzene and toluene from spills of gasoline will impact drinking water wells is largely controlled by the natural anaerobic biodegradation of benzene and toluene. Benzene and toluene, as well as ethanol and other biofuels, are degraded under anaerobic conditions to the same pool of degradation products. Biodegradation of biofuels may produce concentrations of degradation products that make the thermodynamics for degradation of benzene and toluene infeasible under methanogenic conditions and produce larger plumes of benzene and toluene. This study evaluated the concentrations of fuel alcohols that are necessary to inhibit the anaerobic degradation of benzene and toluene under methanogenic conditions. At two ethanol spill sites, concentrations of ethanol greater ≥42 mg/L inhibited the anaerobic degradation of toluene. The pH and concentrations of acetate, dissolved inorganic carbon, and molecular hydrogen were used to calculate the Gibbs free energy for the biodegradation of toluene. In general, the anaerobic biodegradation of toluene was not thermodynamically feasible in water with ≥42 mg/L ethanol. In a microcosm study, when the concentrations of ethanol were ≥14 mg/L or the concentrations of n-butanol were ≥16 mg...Continue Reading

References

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Biofuels are produced through contemporary processes from biomass rather than geological processes involved in fossil fuel formation. Examples include biodiesel, green diesel, biogas, etc. Discover the latest research on biofuels in this feed.

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