| title: | Anaerobic degradation of pollutants by humic substances as terminal electron acceptors |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF5889 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
2.14. Environmental Engineering |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | TTU Faculty of Science |
| head of project: | Anne Menert |
| duration: | 01.01.2004 - 31.12.2006 |
| description: | The aim of this project is to study the use of humic substances as electron acceptors in microbiological degradation processes in order to understand the processes of anaerobic mesophilic digestion, increase their efficiency and as a final result decrease the amount of residual sludge. To resolve these tasks, the following will be carried out: 1. Separation of humic substances from various environments (ecologically clean environment and polluted environments - wastewater sediments, phenoles containing polluted soil); 2. Experiments of anaerobic biodegradation with humic substances separated from natural environment. Additional experiments will be carried out with model compounds (anthraquinone-2,6-disulphonate, standard humic acid). During the anaerobic degradation the bacterial growth rate will be recorded by microcalorimetric method, accompanied by outplating experiments and molecular biology methods in the later phase of the study. 3. The content of indicators of bacterial activity - organic acids (lactic, acetic, propionic and other acids) will be quantitatively determined by high performance liquid chromatographic method. To monitor the changes in humic substances themselves, their molecular and spectral characteristics during the degradation processes will be followed by high performance size exclusion chromatography and UV spectroscopy. The qualitative and quantitaive analysis of products of metabolism will be carried out by GC/MS method. As a result of this project the role of humic substances in bioremediation of pollutants will be clarified, which can be possibly applied in the treatment of wastewaters. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Viia Lepane | Tallinn Technical University | assistent | |
| 2. | Anne Menert | TTU Faculty of Science | senior researcher | |
| 3. | Ergo Rikmann | Tallinn Technical University | insener | |
| 4. | Sergei Zub | Salutaguse Pärmitehas AS | juhataja | |