Chlorophenols (CPs) are highly toxic and refractory contaminants which widely exist in various environments and cause serious harm to human and environment health and safety. This review provides comprehensive information on typical CPs biodegradation technologies, the most green and benign ones for CPs removal. The known aerobic and anaerobic degradative bacteria, functional enzymes, and metabolic pathways of CPs as well as several improving methods and critical parameters affecting the overall degradation efficiency are systematically summarized and clarified. The challenges for CPs mineralization are also discussed, mainly including the dechlorination of polychlorophenols (poly-CPs) under aerobic condition and the ring-cleavage of monochlorophenols (MCPs) under anaerobic condition. The coupling of functional materials and degraders as well as the operation of sequential anaerobic-aerobic bioreactors and bioelectrochemical system (BES) are promising strategies to overcome some current limitations. Future perspective and research gaps in this field are also proposed, including the further understanding of microbial information and the specific role of materials in CPs biodegradation, the potential application of innovative biotechnologies and new operating modes to optimize and maximize the function of the system, and the scale-up of bioreactors towards the efficient biodegradation of CPs.

氯酚（CPs）是剧毒的难处理污染物，广泛存在于各种环境中，会对人体和环境的健康与安全造成严重伤害。这篇综述提供了有关典型CPs生物降解技术的综合信息，其中最环保和良性的CPs去除技术。系统地总结和阐明了已知的需氧和厌氧降解细菌，CP的功能酶和代谢途径，以及影响整体降解效率的几种改进方法和关键参数。还讨论了CP的矿化挑战，主要包括好氧条件下多氯酚（poly-CP）的脱氯和厌氧条件下一氯酚（MCPs）的环裂解。功能材料和降解剂的耦合以及顺序厌氧-好氧生物反应器和生物电化学系统（BES）的运行是克服当前限制的有前途的策略。还提出了该领域的未来前景和研究空白，包括对微生物信息的进一步了解以及材料在CPs生物降解中的特殊作用，创新生物技术的潜在应用以及优化和最大化系统功能的新操作模式，以及扩大生物反应器的规模，以实现CP的有效生物降解。