Biodegradation aspects of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): A review

Interest in the biodegradation mechanisms and environmental fate of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is prompted by their ubiquitous distribution and their potentially deleterious effects on human health. PAHs constitute a large and diverse class of organic compounds and are generally

Biodegradation of high-molecular-weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by bacteria.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of organic compounds that have accumulated in the natural environment mainly as a result of anthropogenic activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels. Interest has surrounded the occurrence and distribution of PAHs for many decadesdue to their potentially harmful effects to human health. This concern has promptedresearchers to address ways to detoxify/remove these organic compounds from the natural environment. Bioremediation is one approach that has been used to remediate contaminated land and waters, and promotes the natural attenuation of the contaminants using the in situ microbial community of the site. This review discusses the variety of fungi and bacteria that are capable of these transformations, describes the major aerobic and anaerobic breakdown pathways, and highlights some of the bioremediation technologies that are currently available.  2005 Society of Chemical Industry

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Bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: current knowledge and future directions

Solid phase extraction of trace elements

Advances in electrochemical methods for pollutant remediation, recycling and sensing are reviewed. Additionally, applications of these methods in the drinking water industry, and for disinfection scenarios are discussed. Lastly, new electrode materials for environmental applications are described. In a companion review, photoelectrochemical methods will be discussed.

Electrochemistry and the environment

This review critically discusses the most important properties of techniques applied to analyses for carotenoids and their impact on the reliability of the analytical results. The emphasis is placed on modern methods and the most recent references. Examples of analytical procedures illustrate the characteristics of experimental approaches to carotenoid analyses but no systematic survey of applications is given. Carotenoids are characterized chemically and their occurrence and functions in organisms are outlined. The principal implications of the (bio)chemical properties of carotenoids for the selection of an appropriate analytical procedure and for optimisation of the experimental conditions are dealt with. Various aspects of pre- treatment and preconcentration of analytical samples are discussed, emphasizing modern approaches, such as microwave-assisted extraction or supercritical fluid extraction; the problems connected with chromatographic purification of carotenoids and with the obtaining of reliable standard materials are also dealt with. The approaches to determination of carotenoids involving high-performance separations are evaluated, emphasizing the importance of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrochromatography (CEC); of the detection techniques, spectrophotometry in ultraviolet and visible region (UV/VIS spectrophotometry), electrochemistry, thermal lens spectrometry (TLC), mass spectrometry (MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and some aspects of vibrational spectrometry are primarily discussed.

Reliability of Carotenoid Analyses: A Review

The approaches to the analysis for estrogen compounds as environmental pollutants are critically reviewed and evaluated on the basis of significant, recent original publications. The importance of sample pretreatment and analyte preconcentration techniques is pointed out, with an emphasis on SPE and on the use of highly selective interactions such as molecular recognition. The hyphenated systems of high-performance gas or liquid chromatography and mass spectrometric techniques are discussed as the basic methods of determination of estrogens in environmental samples. Immunochemical procedures are shown to be useful in semiquantitative screening of estrogen pollutants (e.g. ELISA kits). Classical HPLC and GC with common UV/Vis, fluorescence and electrochemical detection are useful in routine checking on higher pollutant concentrations.

Analysis for estrogens as environmental pollutants--a review.

The review summarizes the current knowledge of different metabolic pathways of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons degraded by bacteria and fungi; several pathways for their bacterial degradation are elucidated. Attention is also paid to a special group of ligninolytic fungi which are very promising organisms for remediation of contaminated soils.

Vera Pacakova

Papers

Reliability of Carotenoid Analyses: A Review

Analysis for estrogens as environmental pollutants--a review.

Microbial Degradation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

Electrochemical Detection in High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of hallucinogenic indoleamines with simultaneous UV photometric and voltammetric detection