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Bioaugmentation with Novel Microbial Formula vs. Natural Attenuation of a Long-Term Mixed Contaminated Soil—Treatability Studies in Solid- and Slurry-Phase Microcosms

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Abstract

Treatability studies in real contaminated soils are essential to predict the feasibility of microbial consortium augmentation for field-scale bioremediation of contaminated sites. In this study, the biodegradation of a mixture of seven PAHs in a manufactured gas plant (MGP) soil contaminated with 3967 mg kg−1 of total PAHs using novel acid-, metal-tolerant, N-fixing, P-solubilizing, and biosurfactant-producing LMW and HMW PAH-degrading bacterial combinations as inoculums was compared in slurry- and solid-phase microcosms over natural attenuation. Bioaugmentation of 5 % of bacterial consortia A and N in slurry- and solid-phase systems enhanced 4.6–5.7 and 9.3–10.7 % of total PAH degradation, respectively, over natural attenuation. Occurrence of 62.7–88 % of PAH biodegradation during natural attenuation in soil and slurry illustrated the accelerated rate of intrinsic metabolic activity of the autochthonous microbial community in the selected MGP soil. Monitoring of the total microbial activity and population of PAH degraders revealed that the observed biodegradation trend in MGP soil resulted from microbial mineralization. In the slurry, higher biodegradation rate constant (k) and lower half-life values (t 1/2) was observed during bioaugmentation with consortium N, highlighting the use of bioaugmentation in bioslurries/bioreactor to achieve rapid and efficient bioremediation compared to that of a static solid system. In general, natural attenuation was on par with bioaugmentation. Hence, depending on the type of soil, natural attenuation might outweigh bioaugmentation and a careful investigation using laboratory treatability studies are highly recommended before the upscale of a developed bioremediation strategy to field level.

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Acknowledgments

SK thanks the Australian Government, University of South Australia (UniSA), and Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE) for the International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and CRC CARE top-up fellowship during PhD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR), University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA, 5095, Australia

    Saranya Kuppusamy

  2. Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of Environment (CRC CARE), PO Box 486, Salisbury South, SA, 5106, Australia

    Saranya Kuppusamy, Palanisami Thavamani, Mallavarapu Megharaj & Ravi Naidu

  3. Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER), Faculty of Science and Information Technology, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

    Palanisami Thavamani, Mallavarapu Megharaj & Ravi Naidu

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  1. Saranya Kuppusamy
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  2. Palanisami Thavamani
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  3. Mallavarapu Megharaj
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  4. Ravi Naidu
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Correspondence to Saranya Kuppusamy.

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Kuppusamy, S., Thavamani, P., Megharaj, M. et al. Bioaugmentation with Novel Microbial Formula vs. Natural Attenuation of a Long-Term Mixed Contaminated Soil—Treatability Studies in Solid- and Slurry-Phase Microcosms. Water Air Soil Pollut 227, 25 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-015-2709-7

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