Phenolic compounds are the major contaminants identified from various industrial effluents, which pose an extreme threat to the environment. Therefore, investigating an effective technique to remove these toxic phenolic compounds from the contaminated environment is very essential. In the present investigation, batch tests were performed to assess the biodegradation of phenol using an indigenous Rhodococcus pyridinivorans strain PDB9T NS-1 encapsulated in a calcium alginate bead system. In order to improve the mechanical stability, silica was added to the cell-embedded Ca-alginate beads. The impact of experimental conditions such as contact time, pH, and initial phenol doses was investigated. The biodegradation of phenol was examined over a wide range of phenol, and the results showed that more than 99.6% degradation was achieved at an initial phenol dose of 1000 mg/L in 70 h at 30 °C. Among the various sorption isotherm tested, the Freundlich isotherm was the best fitted to the experimental data. This behavior indicated a multilayer biosorption process and was controlled by heterogeneous surface energy. Based on an intra-particle diffusion model, internal mass transfer or pore diffusion predominated over exterior mass transfer in controlling the entire phenol biosorption process. The biosorption of phenol onto the cell encapsulated in the Ca-alginate bead follows pseudo-first-order kinetics with a superior phenol biosorption capacity of 155 mg/g of Ca-alginate. Further stability study revealed that the bead could be recycled successfully without any substantial decline in phenol degradation efficiency, indicating that the immobilized microbe possesses exceptional operating stability.
Keywords: Biodegradation of phenol; Biosorption isotherm; Ca-alginate bead; Degradation kinetic; Immobilization; Rhodococcus pyridinivorans.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.