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Updated: Feb 3, 2026
A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities
Published on: December 25, 2015
Social microbial inocula confer functional stability in a methyl tert-butyl ether extractive membrane biofilm
Jessica Purswani1, Isabel M Guisado1, Julio Coello-Cabezas2
1Environmental Microbiology Group, Institute of Water Research, University of Granada, Granada, Spain; Department of Microbiology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Abstract:
Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) degradation technologies based on two-phase partitioning systems such as extractive membrane biofilm reactors (EMBFR) permit separation of biological and contaminant compartments, thus allowing optimization of the biological section. In this study, we set-up an EMBFR with three MTBE-degrading and cooperating strains (termed social biofilm: Agrobacterium sp. MS2, Paenibacillus etheri SH7T and Rhodococcus ruber EE6). The removal efficiency of the social-biofilm EMBFR was 80%, and functional stability was observed in the reactor, i.e. more efficient than previous studies (single-strain inoculated EMBFR, <50% removal efficiency and unstable function). Metabolite tert-butyl alcohol was not observed, and the EC50 values were higher than those observed in single-strain EMBFRs. Comparative analysis of the MTBE enzymatic pathway and the social-biofilm was performed, where the mechanism of cooperation observed within the social-biofilm is likely due to enzymatic redundancy. Functional outcomes were equal to previous batch tests, hence 100% scalability was obtained. Overall, higher functional and stability outcomes are obtained with the use of the social-biofilm in an MTBE-EMBFR.
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