Fortunato Raquel, Crespo João G, Reis M A M
REQUIMTE/CQFB, Department of Chemistry, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
Water Res. 2005 Sep;39(15):3511-22. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2005.06.012.
Thiomersal, a toxic organomercurial with a strong bactericidal effect, is the most widely used preservative in vaccine production. As a result, vaccine production wastewaters are frequently polluted with thiomersal concentrations above the European limit for mercury effluent discharges for which there is, presently, no remediation technology available. This work proposes a biotechnological process for the remediation of vaccine production wastewaters based on the biological degradation of thiomersal to metallic mercury, under aerobic conditions, by a mercury resistant bacterial strain. The kinetics of thiomersal degradation by a pure culture of Pseudomonas putida spi3 was firstly investigated in batch reactors using a thiomersal amended mineral medium. Subsequently, a continuous stirred tank reactor fed with the same medium was operated at a dilution rate of 0.05 h(-1), and the bioreactor performance and robustness was evaluated when exposed to thiomersal shock loads. In a second stage, the bioreactor was fed directly with a real vaccine wastewater contaminated with thiomersal and the culture ability to grow in the wastewater and remediate it was evaluated for dilution rates ranging from 0.022 to 0.1 h(-1).
硫柳汞是一种具有强杀菌作用的有毒有机汞化合物，是疫苗生产中使用最广泛的防腐剂。因此，疫苗生产废水经常被硫柳汞污染，其浓度超过了欧洲汞排放限值，目前尚无可用的修复技术。这项工作提出了一种生物技术工艺，用于修复疫苗生产废水，该工艺基于一种耐汞细菌菌株在有氧条件下将硫柳汞生物降解为金属汞。首先在间歇反应器中使用添加了硫柳汞的矿物培养基，研究恶臭假单胞菌spi3纯培养物对硫柳汞的降解动力学。随后，以相同培养基进料的连续搅拌罐反应器以0.05 h(-1)的稀释率运行，并在受到硫柳汞冲击负荷时评估生物反应器的性能和稳健性。在第二阶段，直接向生物反应器进料受硫柳汞污染的实际疫苗废水，并评估该培养物在废水中生长并进行修复的能力，稀释率范围为0.022至0.1 h(-1)。
