Laboratory‐scale biofilm reactors simulating a full‐scale nitrification filter were challenged with xenobiotic contaminants frequently encountered in water supplies. Phenol and mono‐ and dichlorophenols were removed immediately (by up to 92 percent), with increasing influent concentration reducing the percentage removal. Trichlorophenols were not biodegraded. Mono‐ and dichlorobenzenes were also removed (up to 81 percent), but an enzyme‐induction period of 8–20 h was required before biodegradation became significant. In many cases, feeding of an easily degraded organic substrate (acetate) increased removals of the xenobiotics by a relatively small amount. This result suggests that unidentified background organic material and soluble microbial products generated by nitrifying bacteria allow the accumulation of bacteria able to degrade a range of xenobiotic compounds.
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Manem et al. (1992) studied this question.
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