Microbial Degradation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Characterization of Bacteria

Biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons was studied. Naphthalene was used as a model compound to represent these compounds. Low initial concentrations of naphthalene in a range of 30–60 mg/L were completely degraded after incubation for 15 hrs by consortia from a landfill soil while consortia from minewater took more that 29 hrs to reach complete degradation.