Abstract
Electrokinetic bioremediation was conducted on phenanthrene-contaminated soil to study the effects of soil temperature and pH on microbial population and removal efficiency at different current densities from 0.63 to 3.13 mA cm$^{-2}$ . Microorganism used in the biodegradation of phenanthrene was Sphingomonas sp. 3Y, which was isolated from a diesel-contaminated site. The microorganism was successfully penetrated into the contaminated soil by electrokinetic phenomena and the highest microbial population was observed in the middle region of soil specimen where soil pH was near neutral. Therefore, phenanthrene removal occurred mainly at anode and middle parts of soil specimen due to a relatively high microbial population. Also, the highest removal efficiency of 68.8% was obtained at 1.88 mA cm$^{-2}$ while low degradation was detected at 3.13 mA cm$^{-2}$ . It was presumably because the soil temperature at 1.88 mAcm$^{-2}$ was close to the appropriate temperature of about 30'c while the temperature increase to above 45$^{\circ}C$ at 3.13 mA cm$^{-2}$ inhibited the microbial activity severely.