Bioremediation of Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Seawater: Prospects of Using Lyophilized Native Hydrocarbon-Degrading Bacteria

Abstract

This work aimed to develop a bioremediation product of lyophilized native bacteria to respond to marine oil spills. Three oil-degrading bacterial strains (two strains of Rhodococcus erythropolis and one Pseudomonas sp.), isolated from the NW Portuguese coast, were selected for lyophilization after biomass growth optimization (tested with alternative carbon sources). Results indicated that the bacterial strains remained viable after the lyophilization process, without losing their biodegradation potential. The biomass/petroleum ratio was optimized, and the bioremediation efficiency of the lyophilized bacterial consortium was tested in microcosms with natural seawater and petroleum. An acceleration of the natural oil degradation process was observed, with an increased abundance of oil-degraders after 24 h, an emulsion of the oil/water layer after 7 days, and an increased removal of total petroleum hydrocarbons (47%) after 15 days. This study provides an insight into the formulation and optimization of lyophilized bacterial agents for application in autochthonous oil bioremediation.

Exploiting bacterial isolates for diesel degrading potential under in vitro conditions

“…Consequently, the bacterial progression with the utilisation of carbons and energy sources as diesel significantly degraded by the population, similar records were reported by another study (26). Moreover, soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons should be kept properly to optimize the remediation of crude oil by microbes (54,55).…”

“…Another study suggested that the use of pure cultures that provides practical advantage over the use of bacterial consortia or diversity by eradicating the ambiguity associated with constantly variation microbial diversification in case of community exploitation (24). Biodegradation of hydrocarbons through natural microflora allows for the bioconversion of hazardous compounds into relatively less or non-toxic forms that indicates as one of the primary-mechanisms through which petroleum, diesel and petro based products were mitigated from the eco-environment cost-effectively (10,20,(25)(26)(27). Most of bioremediation studies suggested using pure culture of the bacteria in a natural environment that remains unknown substantially (28).…”

“…and Pseudomonas sp. (21,27) from oil contaminated area by gravimetric analysis for determinate the degrading capacity by anaerobic degradation as well as aerobic environments (26). Mixed hydrocarbons were not degraded better (25) whereas, the (51) has reported that the presence of benzene inhibited toluene, xylene degradation.…”

Removal of Phenol by Rhodococcus opacus 1CP after Dormancy: Insight into Enzymes’ Induction, Specificity, and Cells Viability

“…This method can significantly reduce the mass of the biopreparation. For example, studies have been carried out on the effect of the lyophilization stage on the viability of Rhodococcus cells and the possibility of their subsequent use in biotechnologies for cleaning environmental oil pollution [ 27 ]. The use of lyophilized cells made it possible to obtain 47% removal of total petroleum hydrocarbons after 15 days of the experiment.…”

Advanced bioremediation by an amalgamation of nanotechnology and modern artificial intelligence for efficient restoration of crude petroleum oil-contaminated sites: a prospective study

“… Bioaugmentation Crude oil 14 80.64 Tian et al ( 2018 ) Oil-degrading bacterial population immobilized on biochar Bioaugmentation plus biostimuation TPH 60 58.08 Zhang et al ( 2019 ) Consortium (lyophilized two strains of Rhodococcus erythropolis and one Pseudomonas sp.) Bioaugmentation TPH 15 47 Perdigão et al ( 2021 ) Consortium ( Pseudomonas mendocina BPB 1.8, Bacillus cereus BPB 1.20, Bacillus cereus BPB 1.26, and Bacillus sphaericus BPB 1.35) Bioaugmentation plus biostimuation TPH 60 85 Napp et al ( 2022 ) Fungi (mycoremediation) Scopulariopsis brevicaulis PZ-4 Bioaugmentation Polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-aged soil 28 77 of total PAHs (phenanthrene (89%) and benzo[a]pyrene (75%)) Mao and Guan ( 2016 ) Penicillium citrinum Bioaugmentation Crude oil 23 77% (with individual alkane removal of 95%) Barnes et al ( 2018 ) Aspergillus sp. RFC-1 Bioaugmentation Crude oil 7 60.3% (with 97.4%, 84.9%, and 90.7% removal of naphthalene, phenanthrene, and pyrene resp.)…”