• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.105-111
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• 2002

The biological removal of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) was studied in a bench-scale bioreactor using a bacterial culture of strain OK-5 originally Isolated from soil samples contaminated with TNT. The TNT was completely removed within 4 days of incubation in a 2.5 L bench-scale bioreactor containing a newly developed medium. The TNT was catabolized in the presence of different supplemented carbons. Only minimal growth was observed in the killed controls and cultures that only received TNT during the incubation period. This catabolism was affected by the concentration ratio of the substrate to the biomass. The addition of various nitrogen sources produced a delayed effect for the TNT degradation. Tween 80 enhanced the degradation of TNT under these conditions. Two metabolic intermediates were detected and identified as 2-amino-4, 6-dinitrotoluene and 4-amino-2, 6-dinitrotoluene based on HPLC and GC-MS analyses, respectively. Strain OK-5 was characterized using the BIOLOG system and fatty acid profile produced by a microbial identification system equipped with a Hewlett Packard HP 5890 II gas chromatograph. As such, the bacterium was identified as a Stenotrophomonas species and designated as Stenotrophomonas sp. OK-5.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.193-198
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• 2002

Several 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) degrading bacteria were isolated from an activated sludge by an enrichment culture technique, and their TNT removal activities were examined. Among the isolates, strain C1 showed the highest degrading capability, and completely removed 100 or 200 mg I$\^$-1/ of TNT within 6 hours of incubation. This bacterium was identified as Klebsiella sp. The effects of different carbon sources on the removal of the parent TNT by Klebsiella sp. C1 were negligible, but the transformation rates of TNT metabolites such as amino-dinitrotoluenes and diamino-nitrotoluenes were higher with fructose addition compared to glucose addition. When nitrate was used as the nitrogen source, the degradation rates of TNT and hydroxylamino-dinitrotoluenes were higher than those with the ammonium addition. Although the TNT removal rate of Klebsiella sp. C1 was slightly higher in anaerobic conditions, the further transformations of TNT metabolites were more favorable in aerobic conditions.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.27-31
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• 1996

2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene(TNT) was reduced into intermediate products by mixed culture incubated in anaerobic condition. To test the effects of extracellular material to electron transfer between sulfide and TNT, filtered medium of mixed culture was loaded in the test tubes with TNT and sulfide. The transformation rate was measured under four different conditions. The rate under microbial activity was the fastest among under different conditions. With sulfide or filtrate alone and TNT, the reactions were measured as the slowest reactions or no reactions occured, respectively. The reaction rate coefficient were calculated by linear regression and the first order kinetic was fitted best. Also, the plot of rate coefficients (K$_{f}$) showed linear relationships when at time zero TNT and sulfide concentration were 20 mg/1 and 6.0 mM, respectively. By extrapolation, reaction rate coefficient of 100% filtrate could be calculated as 0.0054/minute. However, reaction rate was affected by different concentration of sulfide, so it is a dependent of sulfide concentration. The results of this test showed TNT reduction rate can be limited more by microbial reaction than by mediation of filtrate or sulfide and filtrate alone.

• Clean Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.247-254
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• 2021

In this study, an eco-friendly combustion process of waste 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT: 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene) was developed, and fundamental data for the quantity of the organic matter in the final combustion residues is presented. Because complete combustion of TNT is not possible theoretically, the combustion process was optimized to reduce organic matter content in the combustion residue by performing measures such as heating time changes, addition of propellant material, and after treatment using a high-temp electrical furnace. From the results, it was confirmed that the organic matter content in the residue could be decreased to 7 ~ 10% with each method. The quantity of the organic matter could be minimized by optimizing the combustion conditions of the process. With only a combustion time increase, the amount of organic matter in the combustion residues was measured at about 9 wt%. The environmental friendliness of the final exhaust gas was also confirmed by real time gas component analyses. In addition, the organic contents could be reduced by a further 2 wt% by applying an additional heat treatment using an external electric furnace after the first incineration treatment. In the combustion process of propellant added waste TNT, it was found that various TNT wastes could be treated using the same eco-friendly protocols because the organic content in the residue decreased in accordance with the amount of propellant. The amount of the organic matter content produced by all these methods fulfilled the requirements under the Waste Management Act.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.468-475
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• 2015

Various methods to degrade explosives efficiently in natural soil and water that include trinitrotoluene (TNT) have been studied. In this study, TNT in water was degraded by reduction with palladium (Pd) catalyst impregnated onto alumina (henceforth Pd-Al catalyst) and formic acid. The degradation of TNT was faster when the temperature of water was high, and the initial TNT concentration, pH, and ion concentration in water were low. The amounts of Pd-Al catalyst and formic acid were also important for TNT degradation in water. According to the experimental results, the degradation constant of TNT with unit mass of Pd-Al catalyst was $8.37min^{-1}g^{-1}$. The degradation constant of TNT was higher than the results of previous studies which used zero valent iron. 2,6-diamino-4-nitrotoluene and 2-amino-4,6-dinitrotoluene were detected as by-products of TNT degradation showing that TNT was reduced. The by-products of TNT were also completely degraded after reaction when both Pd-Al catalyst and formic acid existed. Even though there are several challenges of Pd-Al catalyst (e.g., deactivation, poisoning, leaching, etc.), the results of this study show that TNT degradation by Pd-Al catalyst and formic acid is a promising technique to remediate explosive contaminated water and soil.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.69-74
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• 2012

This study investigated the TNT decomposition by the treatment of alkaline hydrolysis. To obtain this objecitive, spectrum shift characteristics, pH effect, kinetics, and product analysis were examined during the alkaline hydrolysis by means of hydroxide ions. At pH = 12, an aqueous solution of TNT was changed into yellow-brown coloring, in which its absorbances were newly increased in a range of wavelength 400-600 nm. From the kinetic data, pseudo-first-order rate constant in a excess of hydroxide ion, in contrast to TNT concentration, was $0.0022min^{-1}$, which means that the reaction rate between TNT and hydroxide ion can be very slow, and that 1,047 min is necessary to achieve a 90% reduction of the initial TNT. In products analyses, nitrite ions and formic acid were mainly produced by the alkaline hydrolysis, nitrate ions and oxalic acid as minor products were generated.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.28-32
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• 2008

The photocatalytic treatment of water contaminated with 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) was explored in bench-scale experiments in batch mode using a Pyrex tube coated with a thin film of $TiO_2$ located inside a photoreactor. The reactor was aerated by purging it with compressed air before initiating the photocatalytic reaction. The rate of TNT degradation approximated first-order kinetics. The reaction rate constant decreased as the TNT concentration increased from 25 to 100 mg/L, while the first-order kinetics could be modeled using a Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The addition of the organic reductants methanol and EDTA significantly enhanced the rate of TNT degradation, with optimum results in the presence of 20% methanol by volume. EDTA increased the rate of TNT removal by enhancing the role of the reductants.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.67-73
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• 2002

The cellular responses of soil-borne bacterium, Pseudomonas sp. HK-6 to explosive 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) were examined. Two stress shock proteins (SSPs), approximately 70-kDa DnaK and a 60-kDa GroEL were found in HK-6 cells in response to TNT. Analyses of SDS-PAGE and Western blot using anti-DnaK and GroEL revealed that SSPs were induced in HK-6 cells exposed to 0.5 M of TNT far 6-12 hrs. The maximum induction of proteins was achieved at 8-hr incubation point after HK-6 cells'exposure to TNT. Similar SSPs were found to be induced in HK-6 cells by heat shock (shift of temperature, from $30^{\circ}C$ to $42^{\circ}C$) or cold shock (shift of temperature,$30^{\circ}C$ to $4^{\circ}C$).2D-PAGE of soluble protein tractions from the culture of Pseudomonas sp. HX-6 exposed to TNT demonstrated that approximately 450 spots were observed on the silver stained gels ranging from pH 3 to pH 10. Among them, 12 spots significantly induced and expressed in response to TNT were selected and analyzed. Approximately 60-kDa protein, which was assumed highly expressed on the gel, was used for amino acid sequencing. N-terminal microsequencing with in-gel digestion showed that N-terminal sequence of the TNT-induced protein, <$^1XXAKDVKFGDSARKKML^17$, shared extensive similarity with $^1XXAKDVKFGDSARKKML^17$, N-terminal sequence of (P48216) GroEL of Pseudomonas putida.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.775-788
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• 2010

The decomposition of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and the mass balance of nitrogen (N) species as products were investigated in a UV/H2O2system by varying pH, concentrations of $H_2O_2$, and $O_2$. All experiments were conducted in a semi-batch system employing a 50 mL reaction vessel and a coil-type quartz-tube reactor. In contrast with previous studies employing batch mode, TNT decomposition in the semi-batch mode was proportionally enhanced by increasing $H_2O_2$ concentration to 10 mM (0.034%), indicatingthat an inhibitory effect of excess $H_2O_2$on hydroxyl radical (${\cdot}OH$) can be negligible. N compounds are released as $NO_2^-$ in the early stages of the reaction, but $NO_2^-$ is rapidly oxidized to $NO_3^-$ by means of ${\cdot}OH$. $NH_4^+$ was also detected in this study and showed gradually the increase with increasing reaction time. In this study, $NH_4^+$ production can involve the reduction of nitro group of TNT concurrent with the production of $NO_3^-$. Of the N species originating from TNT decomposition, 12 ~ 72% were inorganic forms (i.e. [$NO_3^-$] + [$NO_2^-$] + [$NH_4^+$]). This result suggests that the large remaining N portions indicate that unidentified N compounds can exist.

• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.97-108
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• 1999

Reduction 2, 4, 6-trinitrotoluene by zero valent iron was studied in a batch reactor under anoxic conditions. Results showed that the removal of trinitrotoluene (TNT)followed a pseudo-first order reaction and the rate was linearly dependent on the available reactive surfau area of the zero valent iron surface area, resulting a rate constant of 0.0981min$^{1}m$$^{-2}m$. High concentrations of the final product, presumably triaminotoluene which needs to be treated by other means, accumulated in the solution. However , little amount of TAT was extracted from the metal surface by using acetonitrile or phosphate buffered water (pH 7.0). Other common major intermediate in biological TNT degradation, a group of aminodinitrotoluenes, was not detected in the solution. Therefore, it is postulated that the reduction of nitro group by $Fe^0$ occurs simultaneously in all three positions and a TNT reduction model by zero valent iron was suggested.