 Certain strains of the microbe can utilize thiocyanate as an energy source, a capability which could help clean thiocyanate-contaminated wastewater from coke-oven factories.Other strains have been discovered that can degrade halobenzoates under anaerobic denitrifying conditions, and that can degrade sulfonates under anaerobic growth conditions.Strains of "Paracoccus denitrificans" have been isolated from activated sludge that degrade a variety of methylated amines under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions; another strain is chemolithoautotrophically capable of degrading quaternary carbon compounds such as dimethylmalonate under denitrifying conditions.