Formation of metabolites during anaerobic degradation of NSO-compounds

Laboratory studies and a few field studies have shown that metabolites may be detected during anaerobic degradation of aromatic oil- and creosote related compounds. The present knowledge of metabolite formation in relation to NSO-compounds is very poor. In general, metabolites are much more polar than the parent compounds, and therefore the metabolites are very difficult or impossible to extract from the water. Often, HPLC has to be applied instead of GC techniques. The aim of the project is to investigate to what extent metabolites are formed and to understand the metabolism behind. Metabolite formation from quinolines has been studied using mixed cultures and a pure culture. It has been shown that dead-end metabolites are formed. Development of new analytical tools is part of the research.