Remediation of Decabrominated Diphenyl Ether Contaminated Soil Using White Rot Fungi

Abstract

<jats:p>Biodegradation of decabrominated diphenyl ether (BDE-209) in soil by white rot fungi under various experimental conditions was investigated in this study. It was found that BDE-209 in soil could be rapidly and efficiently degraded by white rot fungi, and the biodegradation fits the pseudo-first-order kinetics during a 15-day incubation period. The residues of BDE-209 in soil decreased with the increase of amount of white rot fungi addition. It can be seen from the results that, white rot fungi have good ability on degradation with one-step or two-step addition method. In native soil, the degradation of BDE-209 reached 52.65%, which was higher than that in sterilized soil. About 37.76-53.74% of BDE-209 was degraded in different soil types after 15 days. In addition, it was confirmed in this study that the presence of Cu<jats:sup>2+</jats:sup>, Cd<jats:sup>2+</jats:sup>could enhance the remediation of BDE-209 contaminated soil, and the residues decreased by 69.20% and 54.65% for Cu<jats:sup>2+</jats:sup>and Cd<jats:sup>2+</jats:sup>treatment, respectively. However, the superior ability of white rot fungi to degrade BDE-209 was not obvious at low pollution level (≤0.5 mg kg<jats:sup>-1</jats:sup>).</jats:p>