US EPA

2088222 

Journal Article 

Degradation of ethylene glycol and polyethylene glycols by methanogenic consortia 

Dwyer, DF; Tiedje, JM 

1983 

Yes 

Applied and Environmental Microbiology
ISSN: 0099-2240
EISSN: 1098-5336 

HEEP/84/03629 

46 

1 

185-190 

English 

6614903 

Methanogenic enrichments capable of degrading polyethylene glycol and ethylene glycol were obtained from sewage sludge. Ethanol, acetate, methane, and (in the case of polyethylene glycols) ethylene glycol were detected as products. The sequence of product formation suggested that the ethylene oxide unit [HO-(CH2-CH2-O-)xH] was dismutated to acetate and ethanol; ethanol was subsequently oxidized to acetate by a syntrophic association that produced methane. The rates of degradation for ethylene, diethylene, and polyethylene glycol with molecular weights of 400, 1,000, and 20,000, respectively, were inversely related to the number of ethylene oxide monomers per molecule and ranged from 0.84 to 0.13 mM ethylene oxide units degraded per h. The enrichments were shown to best metabolize glycols close to the molecular weight of the substrate on which they were enriched. The anaerobic degradation of polyethylene glycol (molecular weight, 20,000) may be important in the light of the general resistance of polyethylene glycols to aerobic degradation. 

Methanobacterium desulfovibrio biodegradation