Hexadecane, biodegradable

Sekelsky AM, Shreve GS (1999) Kinetic model of biosurfactant-enhanced hexadecane biodegradation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Biotechnol Bioeng 63 401-409... 

A review by Maier and Soberon-Chavez [ 19] showed that hexadecane, tetradecane, pristine, creosote and hydrocarbon mixture in soils. Other researchers [35] compared the solubilization of naphthalene by a rhamnolipid, sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), an anionic surfactant and Triton X-100, a non-ionic surfactant. The biosurfactant increased the solubility of naphthalene by 30 times. However, biodegradation of naphthalene (30mg/L) took 40 days in the presence of biosurfactant (lOg/L) compared with lOOh for an equal concentration of Triton X-100 (10 g/L). It appeared that the biosurfactant was used as a carbon source instead of the naphthalene which did... 

Noordman et al. [38] studied the effect of the biosurfactant from R aeruginosa on hexadecane degradation. They determined that the biosurfactant could enhance biodegradation if the process is rate-limited as in the case of small soil pore sizes (6 nm), where the hexadecane is entrapped and is of limited availability. The rhamnolipid stimulates the release of entrapped substrates (if mixing conditions are low such as in a column) and enhances uptake by cells (if the substrate is available). This could then become important in the stimulation of bacterial degradation under in situ conditions. 

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