A Microcosm Treatability Study for Evaluating Wood Mulch-Based Amendments as Electron Donors for Trichloroethene (TCE) Reductive Dechlorination

In this study, wood mulch-based amendments were tested in a bench-scale microcosm experiment in order to assess the treatability of saturated soils and groundwater from an industrial site contaminated by chlorinated ethenes. Wood mulch was tested alone as the only electron donor in order to assess its potential for stimulating the biological reductive dechlorination. It was also tested in combination with millimetric iron filings in order to assess the ability of the additive to accelerate/improve the bioremediation process. The efficacy of the selected amendments was compared with that of unamended control microcosms. The results demonstrated that wood mulch is an effective natural and low-cost electron donor to stimulate the complete reductive dechlorination of chlorinated solvents to ethene. Being a side-product of the wood industry, mulch can be used in environmental remediation, an approach which perfectly fits the principles of circular economy and addresses the compelling needs of a sustainable and low environmental impact remediation. The efficacy of mulch was further improved by the co-presence of iron filings, which accelerated the conversion of vinyl chloride into the ethene by increasing the H2 availability rather than by catalyzing the direct abiotic dechlorination of contaminants. Chemical analyses were corroborated by biomolecular assays, which confirmed the stimulatory effect of the selected amendments on the abundance of Dehalococcoides mccartyi and related reductive dehalogenase genes. Overall, this paper further highlights the application potential and environmental sustainability of wood mulch-based amendments as low-cost electron donors for the biological treatment of chlorinated ethenes.