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Enhanced bioremediation of oil-contaminated soil in a slurry bioreactor by H2O2-stimulation of oil-degrading/biosurfactant-generating bacteria: performance optimization and bacterial metagenomics

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Abstract

Oil-contaminated soil is the main challenge for oil-rich countries, and this study aimed to investigate the performance of the H2O2-stimulated slurry bioreactor for the bioremediation of real oil-contaminated soil. The effect of biomass concentration, soil to water (S/W) ratio, slurry temperature, pH, and H2O2 concentration were optimized for the removal of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) from oil-contaminated soil. TPH removal efficiency, biosurfactants production, and peroxidase and dehydrogenase activities were measured. The optimum conditions for the complete biodegradation of 32 \({\text{g}}_{{{\text{TPH}}}} /{\text{kg}}_{{{\text{soil}}}}\) in the slurry bioreactor during 6 days were biomass of 2250 mg/L, S/W ratio of 20%, the temperature of 30 °C, pH of 7, and an H2O2 concentration of 120 mg/L. The highest peroxidase, dehydrogenase, surfactin, and rhamnolipid formation were also obtained under optimum conditions. The results pointed out that complete biodegradation of 32 g/kg of TPH in oil-contaminated soil at a short reaction time of 6 days is achievable in the developed process operated under optimum conditions. The GC/FID analysis of solid and liquid phases showed that the bioprocess completely biodegraded the different TPH fractions. H2O2 efficiently stimulated the biosurfactant-generating bacteria to produce peroxidase and thereby accelerating the bioremediation rate. Accordingly, an H2O2-mediated slurry bioreactor inoculated with biosurfactant/peroxidase-generating bacteria is a promising technique for cleaning up oil-contaminated soils.

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript was funded by INSF, Iran under the Grant No. 97009235. The authors are also grateful to the Tarbiat Modares University for providing technical and financial support under the Grant No. IG-39801.

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  1. Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

    Farzaneh Fanaei, Gholamreza Moussavi & Sakine Shekoohiyan

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  1. Farzaneh Fanaei
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  2. Gholamreza Moussavi
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FF: Investigation, Writing—original draft, Writing—review and editing, Visualization. GM: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Writing—original draft, Writing—review and editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition. SS: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—review and editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Gholamreza Moussavi.

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Fanaei, F., Moussavi, G. & Shekoohiyan, S. Enhanced bioremediation of oil-contaminated soil in a slurry bioreactor by H2O2-stimulation of oil-degrading/biosurfactant-generating bacteria: performance optimization and bacterial metagenomics. Biodegradation 34, 83–101 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10532-022-10008-z

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