Characteristic Assessment of Diesel-degrading Bacteria Immobilized on Natural Organic Carriers in Marine Environment: The Degradation Activity and Nutrient

Abstract

Oil spill has led to severe environmental and ecological problems. Due to the harsh environmental conditions, the bioremediation technology is not successfully used to remedy the oil spill in marine environment. In this study, immobilization technology was used to immobilize bacteria on natural organic carriers (i.e., wood chips and maize straw). The higher surface area of in wood chips leads to larger biomass density (0.0242 gVSS/g) than that of maize straw of 0.0097 gVSS/g carrier. Compared with biodegradation efficiency of free bacteria (44.79%), the immobilized bacteria on wood chips and maize straw reached to 73.39% and 52.28%, respectively. The high biological activity of the immobilized bacteria can be also explained by nutrients, such as TN (total nitrogen) and TP (total phosphorus), released from wood chips and maize straw, which was 8.83 mg/g and 5.53 mg/g, 0.0624 mg/g and 0.0099 mg/g, respectively.