Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

BIOREMEDIATION OF CRUDE OIL USING HYDROCARBONDEGRADING PSEUDOMONAS LUTEOLA BY IMMOBILIZATION METHODS

V. Gayathri and K. Krishnaprema

Abstract

Bioremediation is a technique which uses living organisms, like bacteria, to convert toxic contaminantsinto harmless compounds in the environment. As crude oil spills cause a major environmental hazard,methods to clear oil spills using biological systems is the need of the hour. Four different bacteria wereisolated from hydrocarbon contaminated soil. Among the four bacteria isolated, Pseudomonas luteola wasimmobilized in four different carriers such as banana peel, banana stem, sediment and gravel due to itshydrocarbon degrading efficiency. The immobilized bacteria were incubated with crude oil along withgrowth medium and the degradation was studied after 5 days. Degradation was checked with gaschromatography-mass spectrometry, and the efficiency of each biocarriers were noted. It was found thatPseudomonas luteolaimmobilized with banana peel and banana stem were more efficient in degrading thecrude oil than the Pseudomonas luteola immobilized with sediment and gravel.