Enhanced bioremediation of oil-contaminated soil in a slurry bioreactor by H2O2-stimulation of oil-degrading/biosurfactant-generating bacteria: performance optimization and bacterial metagenomics.

Oil-contaminated soil is the main challenge for oil-rich countries, and this study aimed to investigate the performance of the H2O2-stimulated slurry bioreactor for the bioremediation of real oil-contaminated soil. The effect of biomass concentration, soil to water (S/W) ratio, slurry temperature, pH, and H2O2 concentration were optimized for the removal of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) from oil-contaminated soil. TPH removal efficiency, biosurfactants production, and peroxidase and dehydrogenase activities were measured. The optimum conditions for the complete biodegradation of 32 [Formula: see text] in the slurry bioreactor during 6 days were biomass of 2250 mg/L, S/W ratio of 20%, the temperature of 30 °C, pH of 7, and an H2O2 concentration of 120 mg/L. The highest peroxidase, dehydrogenase, surfactin, and rhamnolipid formation were also obtained under optimum conditions. The results pointed out that complete biodegradation of 32 g/kg of TPH in oil-contaminated soil at a short reaction time of 6 days is achievable in the developed process operated under optimum conditions. The GC/FID analysis of solid and liquid phases showed that the bioprocess completely biodegraded the different TPH fractions. H2O2 efficiently stimulated the biosurfactant-generating bacteria to produce peroxidase and thereby accelerating the bioremediation rate. Accordingly, an H2O2-mediated slurry bioreactor inoculated with biosurfactant/peroxidase-generating bacteria is a promising technique for cleaning up oil-contaminated soils.

Biodegradation of the petroleum hydrocarbons using an anoxic packed-bed biofilm reactor with in-situ biosurfactant-producing bacteria.

The present study employed an anoxic packed bed biofilm reactor (AnPBR) inoculated with in-situ biosurfactant-producing bacteria for the biodegradation of petroleum wastewater. Highly acclimated biomass decreased the start-up phase period and with increasing the initial total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) concentration from 1.5 to 4 g/L was accompanied by TPH and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies of above 99% and 96%, respectively. Decreasing hydraulic retention time (HRT) from 24 to 6 h caused an increase in the specific hydrocarbon utilization rate value from 0.45 to 1.66 gTPH/gbiomass.d. Moreover, dehydrogenase activity, surfactin, and rhamnolipid reached 31.8 µgTF/gbiomass.d, 95.1, and 27.1 mg/L, respectively. The biodegradation kinetic coefficients such as K, Ks, Kd, Y and µmax were 0.784 (d-1), 0.005 (g/L), 0.138 (d-1), 0.569 (gVSS/gCOD), and 0.446 (d-1), respectively. Dropping of bioreactor performance, especially TPH removal efficiency from 99% to 37.6% in the absence of nitrate after 10 days, indicates anoxic metabolism has been the dominant biodegradation pathway. The effluent chromatogram of gas chromatography/flame ionization detector (GC/FID) showed aliphatic, cyclic aliphatic, and aromatic hydrocarbons efficiently degraded. According to the high degradation rate of AnPBR in different operational parameters, it can be recommended for the treatment of oil-contaminated wastewater.

Enhanced treatment of the oil-contaminated soil using biosurfactant-assisted washing operation combined with H2O2-stimulated biotreatment of the effluent.

A real crude oil-contaminated soil was treated using a two-step method: biosurfactant-assisted soil washing and the biostimulated biotreating of the effluent. The mixture of surfactin and rhamnolipid could enhance the TPH removal from an oil-contaminated soil (32 g/kg) in the soil washing operation. 86% of TPH was removed from the oil-contaminated soil in the soil washing operation under the mixed biosurfactant (surfactin + rhamnolipid) of 0.6 g/L, the soil/water ratio of 20 w/v%, the temperature of 30 °C, and the washing time of 24 h, leaving an effluent containing 5028 mg/L TPH. The effluent was efficiently biotreated in the bioprocess with 5 g/L acclimate biomass daily stimulated with 0.1 mM H2O2, and the concentrtion of TPH decreased to 26 mg/L within 17 d corresponding a TPH biodegradation over 99%. The biostimulation with H2O2 caused the production of a high amount of peroxidase that could accelerate the biodegradation of TPH. Accordingly, the findings suggest that the biosurfactant-assisted washing operation combined with the H2O2-stimulated biodegradation process could be an enhanced green method for efficient treatment of the heavy oil-contaminated soils.

Anoxic biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in saline media using denitrifier biogranules.

The total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) biodegradation was examined using biogranules at different initial TPH concentration and contact time under anoxic condition in saline media. The circular compact biogranules having the average diameter between 2 and 3mm were composed of a dense population of Bacillus spp. capable of biodegrading TPH under anoxic condition in saline media were formed in first step of the study. The biogranules could biodegrade over 99% of the TPH at initial concentration up to 2g/L at the contact time of 22h under anoxic condition in saline media. The maximum TPH biodegradation rate of 2.6 gTPH/gbiomass.d could be obtained at initial TPH concentration of 10g/L. Accordingly, the anoxic biogranulation is a possible and promising technique for high-rate biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in saline media.