Modulation of metabolic activity prevents degradation of sorbed toluene

The factors affecting the ability of a bacterial species to degrade different amounts of toluene (8.5 to 217 mg/g) sorbed to granular activated carbon (GAC), in an aqueous solution of mineral salts, were investigated. After 144 days the amounts of toluene remaining on one type of GAC ranged from 7.5 to 9.5 mg/g, and the aqueous concentrations of toluene ranged from 2 to 7 μg/L. Neither bacterial death nor an inhibition by accumulating by-products could explain why the remaining toluene had not been degraded. However, at these low concentrations of toluene, and probably because of cell starvation, bacteria were observed to be more than 100-times less efficient to degrade toluene than at high concentrations. We propose that this low degradation ability is responsible for the presence of residual toluene on the GAC, and that this mechanism may contribute to the persistence of low concentrations of sorbed pollutants in the environment.