The purpose of my experiment was to determine the abilities of two white rot fungi, Phanerochaete chrysosporium (ME-446) and Ceriporiopsis subvermispora (FP-90031-Sp), to degrade the groundwater pollutant, benzene. My hypothesis is that if the white rot fungi chrysosporium (ME-446) and Ceriporiopsis subvermispora (FP-90031-Sp) is placed into an environment contaminated with benzene, then it will degrade the benzene into harmless organic compounds that are undetectable by the benzene detector tube.

Two control group was set up, the first involving 2 empty petri dishes with 5ml of liquid benzene. The second control group was set up with 2 plates of 6.50g of sterilized soil with 5 ml of benzene. The two experimental groups contained 6.50g of sterilized soil with 5 ml of benzene Phanerochaete chrysosporium in two plates and Ceriporiopsis subvermispora in the other two. All petri dishes were placed in a zip-loc bag with 500ml of pure oxygen. In order to give the fungi time to metabolize the benzene, the levels of benzene in the bag were measured after 3 days using a benzene gas detector tube. These tubes are designed to quantify the volatilized benzene in parts per million in air.

To insure the integrity of the benzene detector tube results, I also tested 500ml of a 5ppm benzene standard. The detector tube showed 5ppm of benzene in the air, proving the accuracy of the instrument used. However, in this experiment, all controls and experimental groups showed undetectable levels of benzene. These results make it impossible to conclude whether the fungi metabolized the benzene or not. Thus, the hypothesis was not supported. One explanation for the

absence of benzene in all samples is that the benzene leaked through t of three days. Future studies would include investigating better containment of the soil samples while they are metabolizing the benzene.