Pentachlorophenol (PCP) has been used as a wood preservative for more than 100 years. The extensive use of PCP has widely contaminated soil and groundwater. PCP is toxic to living organisms. The main objective of this research was to inoculate the pure PCP-degrading bacterium strain Sphingontonas chlorophenolica PCP-1, isolated from PCP-contaminated soils, into PCP-contaminated groundwater for remediation purposes. The factors that influenced the bioremediation were explored with batch experiments using the inoculated immobilized and suspended cells as inoculation. A biological treatment system inoculated with immobilized cells was set up to estimate the microbial capability to degrade PCP. The results indicated that the suspended and immobilized cells could be inoculated into PCP-contaminated groundwater without adding other supplementary nitrogen and phosphate sources in batch conditions. Moreover, PCP decomposition was accompanied with released Cl- and decreasing pH value. The optimum HRT in the bioreactor system was 12.6 h. PCP removal in the bioreactor remained stable and PCP removal efficiency was higher than 92% at this phase. Furthermore, PCP concentration in the biotreatment system effluent remained undetectable. It is possible to bioremediate PCP-contaminated groundwater using immobilized S. chlorophenolica PCP-1 cells in a bioreactor system. The proposed biological treatment system could be maintained for at least for 2 months. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.