BIODEGRADATION OF PHENOL BY ARTHROBACTER AND MODELING OF THE KINETICS

The toxic effects of phenol, a common constituent of many industrial e ffluents, necessitates treatment of the polluted streams. Biodegradati on is a popular technique and enjoys many advantages. The degradation of phenol with Arthrobacter species is studied in batch cultures and i t is observed that the substrate is inhibiting. The fit of various mod els, including the model proposed earlier by us [17], to the experimen tal data is studied. The model is used to fit available data in litera ture, which unfortunately is very sparse. In all the cases the present model fits the data best.