Background: Bioremoval of phenolic compounds using fungi and bacteria has been studied extensively; nevertheless, trinitrophenol bioremediation using modified Oscillatoria cyanobacteria has been barely studied in the literature.

Results: Among the effective parameters of bioremediation, algal concentration (3.18 g·L-1 ), trinitrophenol concentration (1301 mg·L-1 ), and reaction time (3.75 d) were screened by statistical analysis. Oscillatoria cyanobacteria were modified by starch/nZVI and starch/graphene oxide in a bubble column bioreactor, and their bioremoval efficiency was investigated. Modifiers, namely, starch/zero-valent iron and starch/GO, increased trinitrophenol bioremoval efficiency by more than 10% and 12%, respectively, as compared to the use of Oscillatoria cyanobacteria alone.

Conclusions: It was found that starch/nano zero-valent iron and starch/GO could be applied to improve the removal rate of phenolic compounds from the aqueous solution.