Phenol removal through combined biological and enzymatic treatments

This work studies the use of biological and combined biological/enzymatic treatments in phenol degradation. The systems studied were conventional batch aerobic biological followed or preceded by enzymatic treatment. Tyrosinase extracted from the mushroom Agaricus bispora was employed. Biological treatment efficiently degraded effluents containing up to 420 mg.L-1 of phenol, removing 97% of the COD and 99% of the phenol in 48-hour batches. Alterations in phenol concentration intake reduced treatment efficiency significantly. Enzymatic polishing of biotreated effluent removed up to 75% of the remaining phenol in a four-hour reaction with 46 U.mL(-1) of tyrosinase and 50 mg.L-1 of chitosan (used as coagulant).. Enzymatic pretreatment with 20 U.mL-1 of tyrosinase reduced the phenol concentration by 25% after 2 hours of reaction, although initial COD increased up to 58%. The subsequent biological treatment of that enzymatic pretreated effluent reduced COD to 151 mgO(2).L-1 and phenol concentration to 1 mg.L-1 in 24-hours batches.