Advances in biotic and abiotic mutual promoting mechanism for chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons degradation

Abstract

Chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons (CAHs) with characteristics of high toxicity, biological accumulation and recalcitrance to degradation as well as carcinogenicity, teratogenesis and mutagenicity, are seriously harmful to human health and ecological environment. CAHs degradation depends on biotic and abiotic responses that exist diversified interactive effects, so it is important to clarify the mechanism of CAHs degradation via biotic and abiotic mutual promoting to significantly enhance the CAHs-contaminated site restoration. In this work, a series of pathways for CAHs degradation was first introduced and summarized as three means on reductive dechlorination, aerobic cometabolism and direct oxidation, and biotic and abiotic typical factors affecting CAHs degradation were concluded from these. Then, mechanisms of induced degradation and synergistic degradation were indicated from the perspective of mutual promoting degradation both with biotic and abiotic responses, and furthermore, the application and technical limitations of CAHs degradation enhanced via biotic and abiotic mutual promoting were reviewed and analyzed. Finally, the development of CAHs degradation technology in future was prospected.