Biostimulation-enhanced Biodegradation of Nitrobenzene in Contaminated Groundwater

In this study, biostimulation technology was used for bioremediation of nitrobenzene-contaminated groundwater by adding a mixture of lactose and phosphate, peptone, and beef extract. During the process of biostimulation, the remediation effectiveness, microbial dehydrogenase activities and microbial densities were investigated; the varieties of microbial community structure and composition were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis(PCR-DGGE) technique and the relative abundances of nitrobenzene-degrading gene(nbzA) were determined by fluorescence quantitative real-time PCR(RT-PCR). Findings show that the removal rate of nitrobenzene in groundwater could reach about 60% by biostimulation with lactose and phosphate, 70% with peptone and 68% with beef extract. The microbial dehydrogenase activities and microbial densities were all improved obviously via biostimulation. The results of PCR-DGGE show that the microbial diversities were improved, and more than ten kinds of dominant microorganisms were detected after biostimulation. RT-PCR results show that the relative abundances of nbzA gene of microbes in groundwater were increased significantly, which indicated that biostimulation actually enhanced the growth of nitrobenzene-degrading bacteria. Therefore, biostimulation is a cost-effective and feasible bioremediation technique for nitrobenzene-contaminated groundwater.