Análisis de la eficiencia de remoción de glifosato en agua sintética.

Abstract

Several studies had demonstrated Penicillium spp. ability to grow up in medium with glyphosate, in concentrations that exceeds the EPA allowable limits for environmental pollutant. For this reason, this research objective is to evaluate the glyphosate remotion in synthetic water using biofilters with the inoculum of the Penicillum sp. strain. The experimental technology considered was microbiological tests and the design of two kinds of biofilter (continuous flow piston type biofilter and a complete Batch mixture with oxygen diffusion). In microbiological test, it was evaluated the strain growth kinetics by limiting nutrients (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus) with different glyphosate concentration (0.005 – 500 mg a.i. L-1 ; a.i = active ingredient). In addition, both biofilters were designed using a biological support, such as a wood bark of the Persea americana specie (50% v/v) and it was used the strain inoculum and a control (without inoculum), the influent was synthetic water with commercial glyphosate (RANGER - MONSANTO). However, the continuous flow piston type used a surface charge of around 1.5m³ m-2 d -1 and 100 mg a.i. L-1 of glyphosate concentration. Batch type biofilter was analyzed with tree different glyphosate concentrations (500, 5, 0.05 mg a.i. L-1) and the control. The results obtained show Penicillum sp. strain had phosphorus as a limiting nutrient, the biofilters efficiency demonstrate around 75% of glyphosate removal and 65% for total phosphorus. Therefore, the use of the Penicillum sp. strain inoculum in a biological treatment is a novel and potentially applicable remediation proposal for water with glyphosate pollution.