Ineffective biostimulation requires immediate development of new technologies for remediation of
high concentration BTEX-contaminated (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene) groundwater. In
this study, bioaugmentation with Mycobacterium sp. CHXY119 and Pseudomonas sp. YATO411 immobilized
bead was used to remediate BTEX-contaminated groundwater with about 100 mg l−1 in total
concentration. The batch test results showed that the CHXY119 and YATO411 immobilized bead completely
biodegraded each BTEX compound, and the maximum biodegradation rates were 0.790 mg l−1 h−1
for benzene, 1.113 mg l−1 h−1 for toluene, 0.992 mg l−1 h−1 for ethylbenzene and 0.231 mg l−1 h−1 for pxylene.
The actual mineralization rates were 10.8% for benzene, 10.5% for toluene, 5.8% for ethylbenzene
and 11.4% for p-xylene, which indicated that the bioremediation of BTEX by the immobilized bead requires
a rather small oxygen supply. Degradation rates achieved by the bioaugmented permeable reactive barrier
(Bio-PRB) system of the immobilized bead were 97.8% for benzene, 94.2% for toluene, 84.7% for
ethylbenzene and 87.4% for p-xylene; and the toxicity of the groundwater fell by 91.2% after bioremediation
by the bioaugmented PRB, which confirmed its great potential for remediating groundwater with
high concentrations of contaminants.