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Enhanced biosurfactant-assisted composting of oily sludge using a diverse halo-tolerant consortium in the saline environment: effect of repeated inoculation and mixing ratios

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Abstract

Treatment of an oil-rich sludge from an oil field in southern coastal areas of Iran with an initial total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) content of 38,000 mg/kg through composting technology was evaluated, and the effects of re-inoculation using halophile bacteria, mixing ratio, and surfactant application on TPH removal were studied. Results indicated that biosurfactant addition and re-inoculation enhanced the process efficiency, and a TPH removal of 81.7% was observed in selected conditions. Furthermore, mixing ratios of oily sludge and matured compost were critical factors in improving TPH removal. The highest removal rate of 0.91% was seen in the oily sludge/finished compost ratio of 0.5. Pseudo-first-order kinetic model was better fitted with experimental results, and a reaction rate constant of 0.245 week−1 was calculated. Also, the final product qualified the standards of heavy metal content based on the US environmental protection agency recommendation. According to the results obtained, it can be said that composting technology supported by inoculation with halophile bacterial consortium and biosurfactant addition and re-inoculation can be effective in treating oily wastes containing various hydrocarbons. Considering the obtained results, it can be declared that composting can lead to promising results in treating oily wastes containing a variety of hydrocarbons.

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Funding

The present research funding has been provided by the Environmental Technologies Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences (Grant No. U-98109).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Workplace Health Promotion Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Reza Saeedi & Mehrnoosh Abtahi

  2. Department of Health, Safety and Environment, School of Public Health and Safety, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Reza Saeedi & Mehrnoosh Abtahi

  3. Environmental and Occupational Hazards Control Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Mehrnoosh Abtahi

  4. Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences, Shushtar, Iran

    Halime Almasi

  5. Environmental Technologies Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

    Sahand Jorfi

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  1. Reza Saeedi
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  4. Sahand Jorfi
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Contributions

Reza Saeedi: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, resources, writing—original draft.

Mehrnoosh Abtahi: conceptualization, methodology, resources, investigation, supervision, acquisition.

Halime Almasi: review and editing validation, formal analysis.

Sahand Jorfi: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft.

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Correspondence to Sahand Jorfi.

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Saeedi, R., Abtahi, M., Almasi, H. et al. Enhanced biosurfactant-assisted composting of oily sludge using a diverse halo-tolerant consortium in the saline environment: effect of repeated inoculation and mixing ratios. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 14, 2405–2419 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-02472-7

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