Metal Toxicity to Sewage Organisms

Abstract

The Michaelis-Menten model of enzyme inhibition is a convenient method to measure toxicity and to give insights to toxic behavior in pure culture and simple substrate conditions. A linear noncompetitive inhibition pattern is demonstrated for sewage bacteria and a linear competitive inhibition pattern for sewage fungus Geotrichum candidum. Silver and nickel are more toxic to sewage bacteria than to Geotrichum candidum and therefore the metal toxicity is believed to be connected with the overgrowth of the fungus in activated sludge processes.