Electrochemical Stimulation of PAH Biodegradation in Sediment

<div><p>Natural attenuation of PAH in sediments is usually slow due to prevailing anaerobic conditions in sediments. Electrochemical stimulation of PAH biodegradation is proposed and demonstrated for remediation of contaminated sediment. Two graphite electrodes were placed horizontally at different depths in PAH-spiked sediments; the cathode was near the water-sediment interface and the anode was laid in the deeper sediment. An external power of 2 V was continuously applied to the electrodes to stimulate PAH biodegradation. Redox potential around the anode in powered reactors increased gradually, and was 50–150 mV higher than that in the control. pH around the anode decreased to ∼6 from an initial value of 6.4 or 6.7 in powered reactors, which reflected water electrolysis. Phenanthrene concentration at the anode decreased with time, showing a unique Z-shaped profile in the sediment in powered reactors. PAH degrading genes around the anode in powered reactor were found to increase compared to the control reactor, which provided microbial evidence of biodegradation. These findings demonstrated the capability of this novel bioelectrochemical technology for the remediation of PAH-contaminated sediment.</p></div

Advancing the Use of Passive Sampling in Risk Assessment and Management of Sediments Contaminated with Hydrophobic Organic Chemicals: Results of an International Ex Situ Passive Sampling Interlaboratory Comparison

This work presents the results of an international interlaboratory comparison on ex situ passive sampling in sediments. The main objectives were to map the state of the science in passively sampling sediments, identify sources of variability, provide recommendations and practical guidance for standardized passive sampling, and advance the use of passive sampling in regulatory decision making by increasing confidence in the use of the technique. The study was performed by a consortium of 11 laboratories and included experiments with 14 passive sampling formats on 3 sediments for 25 target chemicals (PAHs and PCBs). The resulting overall interlaboratory variability was large (a factor of ∼10), but standardization of methods halved this variability. The remaining variability was primarily due to factors not related to passive sampling itself, i.e., sediment heterogeneity and analytical chemistry. Excluding the latter source of variability, by performing all analyses in one laboratory, showed that passive sampling results can have a high precision and a very low intermethod variability