Douglas Salome Ibietela*, Ugboma CJ and Onwukwe JO

Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Rivers State University, Rivers State, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author: SDouglas Salome Ibietela, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Rivers State University, Rivers State, Nigeria.

Received: November 29, 2021; Published: December 27, 2021

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the bioremediation of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) polluted soil from an abandoned illegal crude oil refining site using organic amendments: fish pond effluent (FPE), spent mushroom substrate (SMS) and compost soil (CS) from an old waste dump site. Baseline studies on the polluted soil samples were carried out. The treatment options were four experimental setups including control in clay pots. The setups were left to stand for 28days and monitored every 7 days using standard microbiological techniques and gas chromatography. The baseline TPH result was 25,350.2 ± 0.21 mg/kg. This was above the DPR intervention limit, which means remedial action is required. Total heterotrophic bacterial (THB) counts ranged from: 1.3 ± 0.05 x 10⁵ to 2.3 ± 0.04 x 10⁶ Cfu/g, Total fungal counts ranged from 9.0 ± 0.01 x 10⁴ to 7.0 ± 0.01 x 10⁵ Cfu/g, Hydrocarbon utilizing bacterial (HUB) counts ranged from 1.0 ± 0.04 x 10⁵ to 1.32 ± 0.04 x 10⁶ Cfu/g, Hydrocarbon utilizing fungal (HUF) counts ranged from: 7.0 ± 0.02 x 10⁴ to 5.1 ± 0.18 x 10⁵ Cfu/g all across the setups. FPE gave a half-life of 9.6 days with TPH degradation of 88.27%, SMS had TPH degradation of 82.12% with a half-life of 12.2 days, CS gave TPH degradation of 75.53% and a half-life of 14.81 days and the control had the least TPH degradation of 6.0% and a longer half-life of 315.1 days. The following bacteria and fungi were isolated and identified: Psuedomonas sp, Bacillus sp, Micrococcus sp, Chromobacterium sp, Alcaligenes sp, Arthrobacter sp, Fusarium sp, Rhizopus sp, Mucor sp, Aspergillus fumigates, Penicillium sp, Cryptococcus sp, Aspergillus lentulus, Rhodotolola sp. These results show that, the addition of these amendments and the natural resident flora enhanced the TPH degradation, with FPE giving the highest bioremediation percent. Hence, FPE may be recommended to be applied in the bioremediation of petroleum polluted soil.

Keywords: Organic Amendments; Bioremediation; Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon; Biodegradation; Illegal Refinery

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Citation

Citation: Douglas Salome Ibietela., et al. “Bioremediation of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon Polluted Soil From an Abadoned Illegal Crude Oil Refining Site Using Organic Amendments". Acta Scientific Microbiology 5.1 (2022): 70-79.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Douglas Salome Ibietela., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.