The biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) test (BOD5) is a crucial environmental index for monitoring organic pollutants in waste water but is limited by the 5-day requirement for completing the test. We have optimised a rapid microbial technique for measuring the BOD of a standard BOD5 substrate (150 mg glucose/l, 150 mg glutamic acid/l) by quantifying an equivalent biochemical mediator demand in the absence of oxygen. Elevated concentrations of Escherichia coli were incubated with an excess of redox mediator, potassium hexacyanoferrate(III), and a known substrate for 1 h at 37 degrees C without oxygen. The addition of substrate increased the respiratory activity of the microorganisms and the accumulation of reduced mediator; the mediator was subsequently re-oxidised at a working electrode generating a current quantifiable by a coulometric transducer. Catabolic conversion efficiencies exceeding 75% were observed for the oxidation of the standard substrate. The inclusion of a mediator allowed a higher co-substrate concentration compared to oxygen and substantially reduced the incubation time from 5 days to 1 h. The technique replicates the traditional BOD5 method, except that a mediator is substituted for oxygen, and we aim to apply the principle to measure the BOD of real waste streams in future work.

Ferricyanide-mediated (FM) microbial reactions were used for the rapid determination of the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of a range of synthetic and real wastewater samples. Four single-species microbial seeds and a synthetically prepared microbial consortium were compared. In all cases, the microbial consortium exhibited a greater extent and rate of biodegradation compared to the individual microbial seeds. Markedly improved correlation to the standard BOD5 method was also noted for the microbial consortium (compared to the single-species seeds). A linear dynamic range up to 200 mg BOD5 L(-1) was observed, which is considerably greater than the linear range of the standard BOD5 assay and most other rapid BOD assays reported. In addition, biodegradation efficiencies comparable to the 5-day BOD5 assay (and much greater than other rapid BOD assays) were observed in 3 h. A highly significant correlation (R = 0.935, p = 0.000, n = 30) between the FM-BOD method and the standard BOD5 method was found for a wide diversity of real wastewater samples. The results indicate that the FM-BOD assay is a promising, rapid, alternative to the standard 5-day BOD5 assay.

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