Oxidation of Toxic MTBE to Formaldehyde and TBA by Pseudomonas Grown on Naphthalene

With the current practice of amending gasoline with up to 15% by volume toxic MTBE, the contamination of groundwater and river by MTBE has become widespread since this compound are toxic and carcinogen and have been wide distributed in river water from car fuel. As a result, the biodegradation of MTBE-impacted aquifers has become an active area of research. Therefore, the aim of this work was to isolate and identify the effect of Naphthalene in oxidation of MTBE. Sea water was contaminated with Naphthalene (1000ppm) and after several subculture, three strains were isolated and identified as Pseudomonas by biochemical test. Naphthalene cell biomass was transferred to Teflon cape tube included 2 micro litres MTBE and incubated for 24 hr at different condition. The removals of MTBE have been assayed by GC. The results showed that strain SA86 remove 70% MTBE without any by-product but produced formaldehyde from TBA, however, Strain SA58 and SA90 produced alcohol and formaldehyde from MTBE respectively. The results emphasis that Naphthalene help for all 3 strains to reduced MTBE but heat shocked cells did not showed any MTBE oxidation.