Investigating the crude oil biodegradation performance in bioreactor by using a consortium of symbiotic bacteria

Abstract

Crude oil pollution is one of the most serious environmental issues today, and the clean-up procedure is perhaps the most difficult. Within one to three weeks, the vast majority of oil bacteria may degrade approximately 60% of the crude oil, leaving approximately 40% intact. The by-product metabolites produced during the breakdown of oil are essentially organic molecules in nature. These metabolites inhibit its enzymes, preventing the oil bacteria from further degrading the oil. By combining a variety of different oils with heterotrophic bacteria in a bioreactor, the rate of crude oil biodegradation was accelerated. In this study, two strains of oil-resistant, heterotrophic bacteria (OG1 and OG2-Erythrobacter citreus) and a bacterium that uses hydrocarbons (AR3-Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes) were used. Gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy was used to investigate the effectiveness of this consortium of symbiotic bacteria in the biodegradation of crude oil. According to gravimetric and gas chromatography analyses, the consortium bacteria digested 69.6% of the crude oil in the bioreactor, while the AR3 single strain was only able to destroy 61.9% of it. Under the same experimental conditions, consortium bacteria degraded approximately 84550.851 ppb (96.3%) of 16 aliphatic hydrocarbons and 9333.178 ppb (70.5%) of 16 aromatic hydrocarbons in the bioreactor. It may be inferred that the novel consortium of symbiotic bacteria accelerated the biodegradation process and had great potential for use in increasing the bioremediation of hydrocarbon-contaminated locations.

Keywords: Biodegradation; Bioreactor; Crude oil; Oil bacteria.