Remediation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Soil Using Hemoglobin-Catalytic Mechanism

It is suggested in this paper that recalcitrant organopollutants can be degraded efficiently by a hemoglobin-catalytic reaction in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (i.e., H₂O₂). The catalytic mechanism was studied with 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) as a compound for oxidation. Various evidence suggests that the catalytic mechanism is very similar to those of horseradish peroxidase and lignin peroxidase. The catalytic intermediates are known to oxidize various chemicals, indicating that the intermediates of hemoglobin can nonspecifically degrade many different types of organopollutants. To prove the hypothesis, an attempt was made to remediate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-contaminated field soil. The results showed that 98.5% of the PAHs compounds were removed by Day 42 and that seven of the 16 PAHs compounds analyzed were not detectable by the end of the research reported in this paper. Therefore, hemoglobin-catalyzed technology can be considered as a novel technology for remediation of soil contaminated with hazardous organopollutants.