Bioaugmentation of soil contaminated with high-level crude oil through inoculation with mixed cultures including Acremonium sp

Biodegradation. 2015 Jun;26(3):259-69. doi: 10.1007/s10532-015-9732-7. Epub 2015 May 1.

Abstract

Heavy contamination of soil with crude oil has caused significant negative environmental impacts and presents substantial hazards to human health. To explore a highly efficient bioaugmentation strategy for these contaminations, experiments were conducted over 180 days in soil heavily contaminated with crude oil (50,000 mg kg(-1)), with four treatments comprised of Bacillus subtilis inoculation with no further inoculation (I), or reinoculation after 100 days with either B. subtilis (II), Acremonium sp.(III), or a mixture of both organisms (IV). The removal values of total petroleum hydrocarbons were 60.1 ± 2.0, 60.05 ± 3.0, 71.3 ± 5.2 and 74.2 ± 2.7 % for treatment (I-IV), respectively. Treatments (III-IV) significantly enhanced the soil bioremediation compared with treatments (I-II) (p < 0.05). Furthermore, significantly (p < 0.05) greater rates of degradation for petroleum hydrocarbon fractions were observed in treatments (III-IV) compared to treatments (I-II), and this was especially the case with the degradative rates for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and crude oil heavy fractions. Dehydrogenase activity in treatment (III-IV) containing Acremonium sp. showed a constant increase until the end of experiments. Therefore reinoculation with pure fungus or fungal-bacterial consortium should be considered as an effective strategy in bioaugmentation for soil heavily contaminated with crude oil.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acremonium / metabolism*
  • Bacillus subtilis / metabolism
  • Biodegradation, Environmental
  • Hydrocarbons / chemistry
  • Microbial Consortia
  • Petroleum Pollution*
  • Petroleum*
  • Soil Microbiology*
  • Soil Pollutants / chemistry*

Substances

  • Hydrocarbons
  • Petroleum
  • Soil Pollutants