[Bioluminescent method of assessing the toxicity of colored substances in waste waters from celluose sulfate manufacture]. / Bioliuminestsentnyi metod otsenki toksichnosti okrashennykh veshchestv stochnykh vod sul'fattselliuloznogo proizvodstva.

The aim of this work was to study the applicability of a bioluminescent technique for assaying the toxicity of solutions containing lignin sulfate and coloured compounds isolated from the sewage of the sulfate-cellulose industry after biological purification. Solutions of the studied compounds (pH 7.0) quenched the bioluminescence of the luminescent bacterium Beneckea harveyi in proportion to their colour index and their content of phenol hydroxyls. This biotest based on quenching the luminescence of bacteria under the action of a toxic agent is rapid and highly reproducible. Therefore, it can be used for assaying the toxicity of sulfate-cellulose industry sewage containing hardly oxidizible coloured compounds. The toxic action of sewage can be predicted basing in the found dependence between the colour index of solutions containing coloured compounds and the intensity of bacterial bioluminescence.