A stable microbial population, consisting of seven bacterial strains and th
ree yeast strains, was selected in batch cultures on a mixture of ortho and
meta-xylene and butyl acetate as the sole source of carbon and energy. Thi
s population can completely degrade up to 10 g/L of a mixture of these xeno
biotics (70% xylene and 30% butyl acetate wt/wt) in a two-phase aqueous-sil
icone oil system (70%/30% vol/vol) within 96 h, while for the usual one-pha
se system very low growth degradation rates were observed. Further organic
solvents were tested and finally, silicon oil was selected as the best orga
nic phase for such a two-phase system. With periodical pH adjustments to 6.
0 in fed-batch mode, the culture showed a global degradation rate of 63 mg
L-1 h(-1).