Assessment of biological activity and fate of organic compounds in a reactor for the measurement of biodegradable organic carbon in water.

Abstract

A new, rapid method for the determination of biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC), especially suited to water industry needs, was recently proposed by the authors. This dynamic method measured the BDOC of circulating water continuously pumped over a biofilm attached to a special support (sinterized porous glass) that fills a system of two glass columns. The BDOC value corresponds to the difference in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) between inflow and outflow water samples. The analytical results are not significantly different from those of other bioassays that use indigenous bacteria, and the total duration of the analysis is less than 3 h. However, a problem common to all the BDOC methods based on attached bacteria is the extent to which the decrease in DOC during the BDOC analysis is due to true biodegradation or to adsorption of organic matter to the reactor. In the present study, a reasonable support is provided for the hypothesis that this decrease, at least in the dynamic method, is predominantly due to microbiological activity. After comparing the support (sinterized porous glass) with a good physical adsorbent (granular activated carbon), the influence of temperature, residual chlorine and sodium azide on the reactor performance was tested, and a sensitivity only attributable to biological activity was observed. Another set of experiments were performed to assess the fate and specific elimination of different organic substances, explicable assuming that biodegradation processes were involved.