Table 4.

Biodegradation of explosive waste by microbes.

Microorganism	Explosive waste	Isolated From	Degradation pathway	Degradation product	Efficiency/Specific degradation rate	Technique used	Ref.
Phanerochaetechrysosporium	TNT	Forest Products Laboratory	Degradation occurs by reduction of nitro groups	2amDNT 4amDNT	The initial concentration of TNT was 30 mg/L. This concentration of TNT was reduced to less than 60 μg/L at the end of the 96 h incubation	HPLC NMR GC–MS	(Bumpus and Tatarko, 1994)
Stenotrophomonas maltophiliaPB1	RDX	Soil and water samples were collected from a site that had been heavily contaminated with RDX and HMX	isolate from the culture used RDX as a sole source of nitrogen for growth	methylene-N-(hydroxymethyl)-hydroxylamine-N’-(hydroxymethyl) nitroamine	specific degradation rate was a value of 0.22 mmol of N per s/kg of protein	HPLC NMR Mass Spectrometry	(Binks et al., 1995)
Enterobacter cloacaePB2	PETN	Soil and water samples were collected from a site that had been heavily contaminated with munition compounds	Isolate was found to use PETN as a sole source of nitrogen for growth	pentaerythritol dinitrate, 3‑hydroxy-2,2-bis-[(nitrooxy) methyl] propanal, and 2,2-bis [(nitrooxy)methyl]-propanedial	specific degradation rate gave a value of 1.03 mmol of PETN/g of protein per hour	Mass Spectrometry NMR HPLC	(Binks et al., 1996)
Pseudomonas putida strain TP1 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain TP6	TNT	Soil samples collected from a TNT-contaminated site located in southern Taiwan	Both strains demonstrated the ability to grow on the medium containing TNT as a carbon, energy, and nitrogen source	–	More than 90% of the TNT in the growth medium was degraded by both strains after 22 days incubation	HPLC	(Chien et al., 2014)
Mixed culture	NTO	Soil Samples	degradation occurred via reduction of nitro-groups	3- amino-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (ATO) and 3-hydroxyamino-1,2,4- triazol-5-one (HTO)	–	HPLC-DAD QToF-MS	(Krzmarzick et al., 2015)
Mixed Culture	TET and PETN	textile wastewater treatment plant activated sludge	PETNdegradation in the aerobic condition follows a successive reductive degradation pathway with the release of NO2- in each denitration step. TNT biodegradation involved reduction of one nitro group to form a hydroxylamino group and subsequent reduction of the other nitro group to an amino group	pentaerythritoldinitrate,3‑hydroxy-2,2-bis [(nitrooxy)methyl]propanal,and2,2-bis-[(nitrooxy)methyl]-propanedial for PETN and amino-4, 6-dinitrotoluene and 4-amino-2, 6-dinitrotoluene for TNT	Addition of rhamnolipid surfactant (60 mg/l) increased the removal efficiencies of TNT and PETN from 53% and 57% to 98% and 91%, respectively	HPLC LC-MS	(Karami et al., 2017)