Bioremediation of Soil Contaminated from Petroleum Hydrocarbons Leaked at Petrol Station, Kota

Abstract

Soil contaminated with hydrocarbons of petroleum and its products need a very cost effective process of remediation which is known as bioremediation. There are numerous factors which affect the efficiency of bioremediation process which generally includes microbial population, environmental conditions and on composition of hydrocarbon spills. The main motive of present work was to find out possible methods to increase the rate of degradation of hydrocarbons by bacteria aerobically (ex–situ treatments). In current work, application of bioremediation process were done on sandy soil collected from petrol stations of Kota which has been contaminated with diesel oil, leaked from underground storage tank. General microbiological laboratory procedures and experiments were used to evaluate the results of biodegradation of the diesel oil contaminated soil. Biostimulation (addition of Tween 80 surfactants and phosphorus-nitrogen solutions) and Bioaugmentation by bacterial consortium were used to enhance the biodegradation process. The present work was to focus on the biological activities and their effect on limiting nutrients in control conditions. Respirometric methods were used to measure the efficiency of biodegradation process. The present investigation results showed that natural bioremediation of diesel contaminated soil can be achieved by the biological agents (especially bacteria). It has been observed by respirometric data indicating that 5% removal of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in 50 days treatment. Predominantly Bacillus spp., Staphylococcus spp. and Pseudomonas spp. of bacteria from soil were isolated and identified at the end of the experiment.