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| Enzymatic
Removal of Phenol From Raw Drinking Water By Using Peroxidase Enzymes |
| Foreword The
sources of raw drinking water such as underground water, river and lake water,
etc. could the contaminated with many toxic aromatic and aliphatic compounds and
among these, phenol is the most common aromatic pollutant. It is carcinogenic
and not easily biodegradable in the conventional water treatment plants. Hence,
special efforts are required to remove such toxic aromatic compounds from drinking
water by providing a polishing step in the water treatment plants. This can be
done by chemical, microbiological or enzymatic means. But chemical methods, such
as ozone treatment is costly and chlorine oxidation may give-rise to certain toxic
chloro-organic compounds, which may be more dangerous than phenol itself. Microbiological
treatment of drinking water is not safe and it is normally not in
common practice. Hence, enzymatic treatment |
|
| is a new and good option to remove such trace toxic aromatics
present in semi-treated drinking water sources, which are commonly used by the
rural people in India and other developing countries.Peroxidase enzyme is nowadays
used for the removal of toxic organic and recalcitrant compounds from drinking
water sources as well as from industrial effluents. Peroxidase is a versatile
enzyme used for many industrial and clinical applications and it is present in
many plants, vegetables and microbes. Peroxidases (from horse-radish, potato,
onion, etc.) are normally cheaper compared to its production from microbes (such
as rot-fungus). Presently, plant-peroxidases are used for many commercial applications.
Here, an attempt has been made to see the efficiency of various types of plant-peroxidases
for the removal of phenol from raw- drinking water sources in the first part of
this work. It is hoped that the present study would be useful in the field of
drinking water as well as wastewater treatments. |
(Dr. V. Rajagopalan) Chairman, CPCB | |
