Aliphatic Hydrocarbon Profile of Crude-oil Degraded by Bacteria Isolates from Bitumen-polluted Surface Water from Agbabu, Ondo State

Abstract

The use of microorganisms for the remediation of petroleum hydrocarbons contaminated environments has been shown to be more suitable and convenient alternative to other approaches. In this study, degradation of aliphatic fractions of Bonny light crude oil by five bacteria: Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579, Campylobacter hominis ATCC BAA-381, Dyadobacter koreensis NBRC 101116, Micrococcus luteus Sn1-1 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa aab51a04 isolated from bitumen-contaminated surface water in Agbabu, Ondo State (E04048-491 and N06034-361) was investigated. The residual aliphatic hydrocarbons after degradation were estimated by Gas chromatography/Mass Spectroscopy analysis. The GC-MS analyses revealed that D. koreensis had the best degrading ability; it reduced 57% of the total detectable aliphatic compounds in the crude oil while Campylobacter hominis had the least percentage reduction (28%). P. aeruginosa, B. cereus and Micrococcus luteus had 42%, 38% and 35% percentage reduction respectively. However, crude oil treated with the combination of the five bacteria resulted in 70% reduction of the total detectable aliphatics thus revealing better degradative performance than individual species.