Synergistic Effect of Soil Organic Matter and Nanoscale Zero-Valent Iron on Biodechlorination

Nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) provides a promising solution for organochlorine (OC)-contaminated soil remediation. However, the interactions among nZVI, soil organic matter (SOM), and indigenous dechlorinating bacteria are intricate, which may result in unascertained effects on the reductive degradation of OCs and merits specific investigation. Herein, we isolated an indigenous dehalogenation bacterium (Burkholderia ambifaria strain L3) from a paddy soil and further investigated the biodechlorination of pentachlorophenol (PCP) with individual and a combination of SOM and nZVI. In comparison with individual-strain L3 treatment, the cotreatment with nZVI or SOM increased the removal efficiency of PCP from 34.4 to 44.3–54.2% after 15 day cultivation. More importantly, a synergistic effect of SOM and nZVI was observed on the PCP removal by strain L3, and the PCP removal efficiency reached up to 75.3–84.5%. Other than the biodegradation through ortho- and meta-substitution under the individual application of SOM or nZVI, PCP was further biodegraded to 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP) through para-substitution by the isolated bacteria with the cotreatment of SOM and nZVI. The main roles of the nZVI–SOM cotreatment in the biodegradation included the SOM-facilitated microbial proliferation, the nZVI-promoted microbial transformation of SOM, and the induced higher electron transport capacity of redox Fe-PCP biocycling. These findings provide a novel insight into the action of nZVI in environmental remediations.