Study on phenolic wastewater treatment by Trichosporonsp. X1 immobilized by PVA

The paper took advantage of immobilized cell technology to improve the tolerance of microbial degradation of phenol, the highly effective phenol-degrading strain of Trichosporon sp. X1 was immobilized by PVA and this application in the degradation of phenol and the treatment of actual gas-washing wastewater was also considered. The results showed that under the air-lift bioreactor with semi-continuous operation, the bioreactor was performed at a inlet phenol concentration as high as 5 000 mg/L, the phenol in the effluent was observed to reach a stable level with removal efficiency at around 94% after running 10 d and the volumetric loading up to 2.857 kg/(m3·d). In contrast, free-cell system was suitable to treat the wastewater of phenol concentration less than 1 500 mg/L. This indicated that immobilized cells system was more conducive to treat the phenolic wastewater of high concentration. the combination system of the free-cell and immobilized-cell was used to treat the cold-gas washing wastewater. The phenol removal rate reached 90% after running 15 d, and GC-MS analysis results of effluent showed that the combination technology could enhance the capacity of the original system shock load and improve efficiency of the water treatment. In addition, this combination system could take a reference for the actual cold-gas washing wastewater treatment engineering.