Successful integrated bioremediation system of hydrocarbon-contaminated soil at a former oil refinery using autochthonous bacteria and rhizo-microbiota

Abstract

The development of industrialized global economy have produced a strong contamination by the petroleum-based products resulting from the activities related to the petrochemical industry; in the last years, the hydrocarbons become one of the major environmental problems. Bioremediation is a new approach based on the use of microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) and plants, and it has been researched extensively for possible applications related to hydrocarbon degradation in the petroleum industry. The scope of the application of this technology on soil of a former oil refinery is the production in situ of strong and diverse enzymatic activity such as to attack the hydrocarbon molecules through various routes of enzymatic degradation. The application of a remediation based on the biological degradation process by means of a strategy of action based on in situ degradation principles of aerobic bacteria, fungi, and plants either through biostimulation actions of the indigenous microbial population, both by increasing the content of the same flora through further introduction of native bacteria, fungi, and plants has the advantage of reducing the risks of residual contaminants and/or inverse transformation.