Advanced materials for immobilization of purple phototrophic bacteria in bioremediation of oil-polluted wastewater.

Oil pollution which results from industrial activities, especially oil and gas industry, has become a serious issue. Cinder beats (CB), coconut fiber (CF) and polyurethane foam (PUF) are promising immobilization carriers for crude oil biodegradation because they are inexpensive, nontoxic, and non-polluting. The present investigation was aimed to evaluate this advanced technology and compare the efficiency of these immobilization carriers on supporting purple phototrophic bacterial (PPB) strains in hydrocarbon biodegradation of crude oil contaminated seawater.

[Dismutation as a metabolic pathway : transformation of the trimethyl 3,5,5, cyclohexanone (author's transl)].

Besides novel routes of biotransformation of xenobiotic substances recently reported, such as N-glucuronidation of teritary amines and quaternary ammonium componds, N-glucosylation, N-carbamylglucuronide formation from a primary amine, C-glucuronidation, conjugation with long-chain fatty acids, with polypeptides, carbon-chain elongation, stereospecific inversion of configuration at a satured carbon atom, formation of methylthio metabolites, the authors have described a new metabolic pathway: dismutation, in the case of 3,5,5, - trimethylcyclohexanone (dihydroisophorone). As a matter of fact, this compound leads, in vivo, to the formation of isophorone alpha and of cis and trans 3,5,5, - trimethyl cyclohexanols. These compounds, extracted from the urine of treated rats and rabbits, have been identified by gas-liquid chromatography and thin-layer chromatography.

[Analysis of volatile N-nitrosamines. A brief review].

The different steps of analysis of volatile N-Nitrosamines: separation from product, clean up, detection, quantification and confirmation are reviewed and discussed. The two best analysis procedures are: 1) combined gas-chromatography; mass-spectrometry, 2) combined gas-chromatography; thermal energy analyzer. However a bundle of proofs is always necessary to ascertain the presence of Nitrosamines.