Biodegradation of waste lubricants by a newly isolated Ochrobactrum sp. C1

Abstract

A potential degrader of paraffinic and aromatic hydrocarbons was isolated from oil-contaminated soil from steel plant effluent area in Burnpur, India. The strain was investigated for degradation of waste lubricants (waste engine oil and waste transformer oil) that often contain EPA (Environmental Protection Agency, USA) classified priority pollutants and was identified as Ochrobactrum sp. C1 by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The strain C1 was found to tolerate unusually high waste lubricant concentration along with emulsification capability of the culture broth, and its degradation efficiency was 48.5 ± 0.5 % for waste engine oil and 30.47 ± 0.25 % for waste transformer oil during 7 days incubation period. In order to get optimal degradation efficiency, a three level Box–Behnken design was employed to optimize the physical parameters namely pH, temperature and waste oil concentration. The results indicate that at temperature 36.4 °C, pH 7.3 and with 4.6 % (v/v) oil concentration, the percentage degradation of waste engine oil will be 57 % within 7 days. At this optimized condition, the experimental values (56.7 ± 0.25 %) are in a good agreement with the predicted values with a calculated R2 to be 0.998 and significant correlation between biodegradation and emulsification activity (E24 = 69.42 ± 0.32 %) of the culture broth toward engine oil was found with a correlation coefficient of 0.972. This is the first study showing that an Ochrobactrum sp. strain is capable of degrading waste lubricants, which might contribute to the bioremediation of waste lubricating oil-contaminated soil.

Microbial Electricity Generation and Isolation of Exoelectrogenic Bacteria Based on Petroleum Hydrocarbon‐contaminated Soil

“…For the obligate aerobic genus Ochrobactrum , some isolated Ochrobactrum sp. from wastewater treatment plant, petroleum refinery wastewater or petroleum‐contaminated soil have been reported . The exoelectrogenic bacterium Ochrobactrum anthropi YZ‐1 has been isolated by Bruce E. Logan, where the maximum power density was 89 mW m −2 for YZ‐1 strain .…”

Aerobic bacteria degrading both n-alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons: an undervalued strategy for metabolic diversity and flexibility

“…Several strains of hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria can be found within the Ochrobactrum genus, but only a few ones were shown to exhibit diversified biochemical capabilities. Bhattacharya et al (2015) isolated Ochrobactrum sp. C1 which could grow in the presence of a wide range of compounds (nC 12 -nC 28 , phenanthrene and anthracene) and waste lubricants.…”

“…Another approach that has been applied is based on biodegradation of multicomponent mixtures containing both aliphatic and aromatic compounds, such as coal tar (Pasternak et al 2011), fuel oil (Vila and Grifoll 2009), crude oil (Mittal and Singh 2009), lubricant wastes (Bhattacharya et al 2015) or petroleum sludge (Bezza et al 2015). In these cases, the GC-MS technique was found to be especially applicable by facilitating determination of individual compounds in the analyzed complex mixtures (Whyte et al 1997;Pasternak et al 2011) or accumulated metabolites (Vila et al 2001;Vila and Grifoll 2009).…”

Removal of Used Engine Oil by a Novel Lab Scale Bioreactor

“…Su et al, 18 demonstrated the motor-oil-degrading potential of an indigenous Pseudomonas aeruginosa SU-1 bacterial strain was found to have the capacity to degrade engine oil effectively. Bhattacharya et al, 14 reported that a newly isolated Ochrobactrum sp. C1 could grow with waste lubricants.…”