Affiliations 

  • 1 Faculty of Maritime Studies, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia. Electronic address: lfchuah@umt.edu.my
  • 2 School of Chemical Engineering, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan, 712-749, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: alam.chem@yu.ac.kr
  • 3 Institute of Bioproduct Development, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia; Department of Bioprocess and Polymer Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
  • 4 Faculty of Maritime Studies, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia
  • 5 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, P. O. Box 2455, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
  • 6 Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Institute of Medical Science Technology, A1, 1, Jalan TKS 1, Taman Kajang Sentral, 43000, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 7 Biotechnology Research Institute, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jln UMS, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Chemosphere, 2023 Oct;337:139293.
PMID: 37369285 DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.139293

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.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.