Biodegradation of reactive turquoise blue

In this study, the anaerobic degradation and the aerobic degradation of a kind of reactive dye Reactive Turquoise Blue(RTB) were compared. The results proved that anaerobic sludge could only decompose RTB in the presence of glucose while aerobic sludge decomposed RTB with or without the presence of glucose (RTB of 20mg/L was reduced by 37.4 % through 24 hours' aerobic treatment with RTB as sole carbon source). The enhancement of glucose concentration was beneficial for both anaerobic and aerobic degradation of RTB: the anaerobic and the aerobic removal efficiencies were respectively 81.5% and 73.6% with RTB of 20mg/L and glucose of 1200 mg/L. In the influent RTB concentration also had influence on the activity of anaerobic and aerobic microorganisms. When glucose concentration was 800mg/L or 1200mg/L and RTB concentration was 20mg/L to 100 mg/L, anaerobic removal efficiency of RTB was higher than aerobic removal efficiency by 4.9%-27.2%, which meant that anaerobic bacteria is more powerful than aerobic b acteria in terms of RTB removal.