Five-Year Enhanced Natural Attenuation of Historically Coal-Tar-Contaminated Soil: Analysis of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon and Phenol Contents

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess the soil pollution on an industrial wasteland, where coal-tar was processed in the period between 1880 and 1997, and subsequent to assess the decline in the content of phenols and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) during enhanced natural attenuation. The soil of the investigated area was formed from a layer of uncompacted fill. Twelve sampling points were established in the investigated area for collecting soil samples. A study conducted in 2015 did not reveal any increase in the content of heavy metals, monoaromatic hydrocarbons (BTEX), and cyanides. However, the content of PAHs and phenols was higher than the content permitted by Polish norms in force until 2016. In the case of PAHs, it was observed for individual compounds and their total contents. Among the various methods, enhanced natural attenuation was chosen for the remediation of investigated area. Repeated analyses of the contents of phenols and PAHs were conducted in 2020. The results of the analyses showed that enhanced natural attenuation has led to efficient degradation of the simplest substances—phenol and naphthalene. The content of these compounds in 2020 was not elevated compared to the standards for industrial wastelands. The three- and four-ring hydrocarbons were degraded at a lower intensity. Based on the mean decrease in content after 5-year enhanced natural attenuation, the compounds can be arranged in the following order: phenols > naphthalene > phenanthrene > fluoranthene > benzo(a)anthracene > chrysene > anthracene.

Molecular characterization of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) degrader, Burkholderia contaminans strain P14, isolated from aged oil-contaminated soil in Kuwait

“…In the current study, we have employed specific selective media to isolate PAH degraders in substrates like PHE and FLU, followed by taxonomical identification. Many articles reported the presence of PAHdegrading bacteria that were isolated from industrial waste, petroleum and oil-contaminated soil sites from different regions of the world, mainly genera of Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Bacillus, Cronobacter, and Enterobacter were observed (Podsiadło and Krzysko-upicka, 2013;Tirkey et al, 2021;Telesiński and Kiepas-Kokot, 2021).…”

Oxidative stress response in pulmonary cells exposed to different fractions of PM2.5-0.3 from urban, traffic and industrial sites

“…Between these two periods, the PAH profile (Figure S1) differed mainly by the content of chrysene (contribution of wood combustion and coal distillation (Telesiński and Kiepas-Kokot, 2021)) and benzo[b]fluoranthene (diesel vehicle emissions (Xing et al, 2022)). In parallel, the higher PAH contents were found for the industrial sample with a total content of 136.4 µg/g, which corresponds to a value between 2 and 8 times higher than that of the other sites.…”

“…Numerous studies have been conducted to study chemical atmospheric particulate matter (PM) characteristics (Telesiński and Kiepas-Kokot, 2021), and to better understand the impact of PM on human health (Broome et al, 2020;Fischer et al, 2020;Guan et al, 2021;Lin et al, 2020; P. Zhang et al, 2021). Results have shown associations between PM and cardiovascular disease (Aryal et al, 2021), fertility (L. , cancer (Gogna et al, 2019;Nagel et al, 2018), increased risk of autism spectrum disorders (Lam et al, 2016), psychiatric disorders (Buoli et al, 2018;Chen et al, 2018;Oudin et al, 2016).…”

Insights Into Mechanism of the Naphthalene-Enhanced Biodegradation of Phenanthrene by Pseudomonas sp. SL-6 Based on Omics Analysis

“…However, most of the studies focus on the biodegradation of a single PAH by microorganisms. The actual situation is more complex, many kinds of PAHs coexist in natural environment ( Telesiński and Kiepas-Kokot, 2021 ). When PAHs coexist, the degradation of one PAH could be enhanced or inhibited by others.…”