Competitive adsorption of organic compounds by microbial biomass

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of competitive adsorption of liquid organic compounds on inactive microbial biomass in bisolute solution systems. Phenol-nitrophenol, phenol- chlorophenol, nitrophenol-chlorophenol, and chlorobenzene-ethylbenzene systems were selected for the analysis. The experimental results suggest that although the amount of each solute adsorbed on the biomass can be reduced significantly by the presence of a second solute, the combined adsorptive capacity was greater than that for either of the individual substances from its pure solution. The octanol/water partition coefficient(Kow) indicates the relative extent of adsorption better than the aqueous solubility(S). Copyright © 1988, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC