Abstract
Objective
Water in oil emulsions increase oil processing costs and cause damage to refinery equipment which necessitates demulsification. Since chemical demulsifiers cause environmental pollution, biodemulsifiers have been paid more attention. This study aims to identify biodemulsifier-producing bacteria from petroleum contaminated environments.
Results
As a result, several biodemulsifier producing strains were found that Stenotrophomonas sp. strain HS7 (accession number: MF445088) which produced a cell associated biodemulsifier showed the highest demulsifying ratio, 98.57% for water in kerosene and 66.28% for water in crude oil emulsion after 48 h. 35 °C, pH 7, 48 h incubation and ammonium nitrate as nitrogen source were optimum conditions for biodemulsifier production. Furthermore, it was found that hydrophobic carbon sources like as liquid paraffin is not preferred as the sole carbon source while a combination of various carbon sources including liquid paraffin will increase demulsification efficiency of the biodemulsifier.
Conclusions
The appropriate potential of this biodemulsifier strengthens the possibility of its application in industries especially petroleum industry.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank vice chancellor of research of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz for providing research grant (Grant No. 874095) and MSc. Thesis grant.
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Sabati, H., Motamedi, H. Ecofriendly demulsification of water in oil emulsions by an efficient biodemulsifier producing bacterium isolated from oil contaminated environment. Biotechnol Lett 40, 1037–1048 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-018-2565-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-018-2565-9