International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—The immobilization system utilizing waste silica gel as matrix was employed for the simultaneous removal of a mixture of BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, o,m,p-xylene) and methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) from an artificially contaminated water. Pure culture utilizing BTEX as growth substrate while co-metabolizing MTBE was enriched and isolated from the activated sludge sample collected from a regional wastewater treatment plant in Macau SAR, China. The comparison between suspended and immobilized systems was studied to determine the enhanced removal of these contaminants. In immobilized system with 50 mg/L BTEX and 100 mg/L MTBE, toluene, benzene, ethylbenzene, and  m ,p-xylene were completely removed while the removal efficiencies of 98.5±1.7% and 81.3±2.2% were obtained for o-xylene and MTBE, respectively. The adsorption kinetics of contaminants on silica gel was also evaluated and the adsorption capacity followed the order of   o  -xylene> p -xylene>m-xylene>e thylbenzene>benzene>toluene> MTBE. Results from this study suggested that waste silica gel could be a promising waste material for the sim ultaneous adsorption and bioremoval of BTEX and MTBE from contaminated groundwater. 

Index Terms—BTEX, immobilization, MTBE, removal, waste silica gel.

The authors are with University of Macau, Faculty of Science and Technology, Macau SAR, China (e-mail: xiefei0622@outlook.com, nickylu620@gmail.com, toledora@gmail.com, hjshim@umac.mo).

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Cite: Fei Xie, Qihong Lu, Renata Alves de Toledo, and Hojae Shim, "Combined Removal of an MTBE and BTEX Mixture Using Indigenous Microbe Immobilized on Waste Silica Gel," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 244-247, 2016.