Anthracene Degradation in Starch-amended Co-composting Process: An Initial Appraisal

Co-composting of organic waste enhances the degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the environment. In some cases, however the actual mechanism of the degradation is not very clear. The contribution of starch to the degradation of organic pollutants in co-composting process has not been previously explored, although its effect on the composting process has been studied. Hence, in this study, GC-MS was used to examine the degradation of anthracene in a three (3) weeks co-composting process of starch and green waste compost. The GC-MS analysis was able to identify anthracene and its oxidation product anthraquinone in the compost samples. After three (3) weeks of composting, the 1g/Kg of anthracene added to the compost gave relative abundances of 8x106 and 4.5x106 in the GC-MS chromatogram for the unamended and starch-amended compost respectively. This was an indication that anthracene degradation was more in the starch-amended compost. Despite this observation, ANOVA revealed that amendment with starch was not a significant factor, but rather time (p < 0.05) was. The results from this initial appraisal are interesting. Thus, further investigations with higher starch dosage, longer composting time, as well as the microbial activities of the bioremediation process are currently on to unravel the observed trend and also to propose anthracene degradation kinetics.