A new biopreparation is developed to clean soils from oil pollution in the arid climate of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The biopreparation includes bacterial strains R. qingshengii F2-1, R. qingshengii F2-2, and P. alloputida BS3701. When using the biopreparation in a liquid mineral medium with 15% crude oil, laboratory studies have revealed degradation of 48% n-alkanes and 39% of PAHs after 50 days. The effectiveness of the biopreparation has been demonstrated in field experiments in the soil contaminated with 10% crude oil at the K-Kurylys landfill, Republic of Kazakhstan. During the six-month field experiment, the number of oil degraders reached 107 CFU/g soil, which degraded 70% of crude oil by the end of the experiment.
Keywords: PAHs; alkanes; biodegradation; crude oil; field trials; microbial consortia.