Tetrachloromethane degradation

One of the chief uses of chloromethane is as a starting material from which sili cone polymers are made Dichloromethane is widely used as a paint stripper Trichloromethane was once used as an inhalation anesthetic but its toxicity caused it to be replaced by safer materials many years ago Tetrachloromethane is the starting mate rial for the preparation of several chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) at one time widely used as refrigerant gases Most of the world s industrialized nations have agreed to phase out all uses of CFCs because these compounds have been implicated m atmospheric processes that degrade the Earth s ozone layer... 

Experiments have been carried out to compare nanoscale catalysts composed of Fe-, Ni-, and Co-complexes of several porphyrins or cyanocobalamin (Dror et al. 2005). A cobalt-porphyrin complex and cyanocobalamin in the presence of Ti(III)citrate reduced the initial concentrations of tetrachloromethane and tetrachloroethene by —99.5%, and the porphyrin was equally effective with trichloroethene. The advantage of using heterogeneous catalysts was shown by experiments in repetitive cycling of tetrachloromethane. Zero-valent metals degrade vicinal dichlorides such as tetrachloroethene by a-elimination to produce dichloroacetylene and hnally acetylene (Roberts et al. 1996). 

These results may be viewed in the wider context of interactions between potential ligands of multifunctional xenobiotics and metal cations in aquatic environments and the subtle effects of the oxidation level of cations such as Fe. The Fe status of a bacterial culture has an important influence on synthesis of the redox systems of the cell since many of the electron transport proteins contain Fe. This is not generally evaluated systematically, although the degradation of tetrachloromethane by a strain of Pseudomonas sp. under denitrifying conditions clearly illustrated the adverse effect of Fe on the biotransformation of the substrate (Lewis and Crawford 1993 Tatara et al. 1993). This possibility should therefore be taken into account in the application of such organisms to bioremediation programs. 

FIGURE 7.64 Degradation of tetrachloromethane (CCI4) mediated by pyridine-2,6-dithiocarboxylate. 

The degradation of tetrachloromethane by a strain of Pseudomonas sp. presents a number of exceptional features. Although was a major product from the metabolism of CCI4, a substantial part of the label was retained in nonvolatile water-soluble residues (Lewis and Crawford 1995). The nature of these was revealed by the isolation of adducts with cysteine and A,A -dimethylethylenediamine, when the intermediates that are formally equivalent to COClj and CSClj were trapped—presumably formed by reaction of the substrate with water and a thiol, respectively. Further examination of this strain classified as Pseudomonas stutzeri strain KC has illuminated novel details of the mechanism. The metabolite pyridine-2,6-dithiocarboxylic acid (Lee et al. 1999) plays a key role in the degradation. Its copper complex produces trichloromethyl and thiyl radicals, and thence the formation of CO2, CS2, and COS (Figure 7.64) (Lewis et al. 2001). 

The degradation of tetrachloromethane by Pseudomonas stutzeri strain KC involves hydrolysis to CO2 by a mechanism involving the natnrally prodnced pyridine-2,6-dithiocarboxylic acid (Lewis et al. 2001) details have already been discnssed in Chapter 7, Part 3. This organism was nsed in field evaluation at a site at which the indigenons flora was ineffective, and acetate was used as electron donor (Dybas et al. 2002). One novel featnre was inocnlation at a series of wells perpendicnlar to the established flow of the gronndwater plnme. Effective removal of tetrachloromethane was snstained over a period of 4 years, and transient levels of chloroform and H2S disappeared after redncing the concentration of acetate. 

Egli, C., R. Scholtz, A. M. Cook, and T. Leisinger, Anaerobic dechlorination of tetrachloromethane and 1,2-dichloroethane to degradable products by pure cultures of Desulfobacterium sp. and Methanobacterium sp. FEMS Microbiol. Lett., 43, 257-261 (1987). 

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