Treatment of the fuel oxygenate, MTBE, contaminated ground water using Sequence Batch Bioreactor

A mixed bacterial culture capable of mineralizing methyl tort-butyl ether (MTBE), other fuel oxygenates ethers, tertiary carbon alcohols, benzene and toluene was used to inoculate batch reactor and sequence batch reactor (SBR) to treat gasoline contaminated ground water containing about 60 mg/L MTBE, 5 mg/L benzene, 5 mg/L toluene, and low concentrations of several other aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons. Respirometery studies showed that MTBE degrading mixed culture could treat MTBE contaminated ground water with addition of nitrogen and phosphate. SBR was operated to demonstrate the feasibility of using suspended growth activated system for the treatment of ground water and to confirm that the respirometry derived kinetics and stoichiometric coefficients were useful for predicting reactor performance. Theoretical performance of the reactor was predicted using mathematical models calibrated with biokinetic parameters derived from respirometry studies.