Characteristics of the Microbial Communities Occuring in Oily Sludges From Petroleum Industry

Abstract

During the last decade the bioremediation of oily sludges from petroleum industry became of special interest. In this context, a research group from Institute of Biology, Bucharest and PETROSTAR S.A. Ploiesti carried out investigations on the occurrence of bacterial communities in oily sludges from petroleum industry and their role in bioremediation of such polluted environment.

It was found that the ability of microorganisms in degradation of hydrocarbons contained in oily sludges is influenced by factors as: the content in waste hydrocarbons, the type of bacterial inoculum, the added fertilisers (nitrogen and phosphorus salts) and suitable parameters such as temperature, aeration, homogenisation, pH etc.

The bacterial consortia isolated from naturally occuring bacteria in slops using classical enrichment culture method, have been submitted to a laboratory screening to select the ones with good performances in waste hydrocarbon degradation. The efficiency of bacterial consortia selected in degradation of hydrocarbons from sludges, depending of several categories of oily sludges and their initial content in hydrocarbons, varied between 2.35-10.66% and 47.23-72-75%.