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Bioremediation of oily sludge-contaminated soil by stimulating indigenous microbes

Environmental Geochemistry and Health volume 32, pages 23–29 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

In situ bioremediation of oily sludge-contaminated soil by biostimulation of indigenous microbes through adding manure was conducted at the Shengli oilfield in northern China. After bioremediation for 360 days, total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) content was reduced by 58.2% in the treated plots compared with only 15.6% in the control plot. Moreover, bioremediation significantly improved the physicochemical properties of the soil in the treated plot. Soil microbial counts and community-level physiological profiling were also examined. Manure addition increased TPH degraders and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) degraders in the contaminated soil by one to two orders of magnitude. The activity and biodiversity of soil microbial communities also increased markedly in the treated plot compared with that of the control. Finally, biotoxicity was used to evaluate the soils and a sharp increase in the EC50 of the soil after bioremediation was observed, indicating that bioremediation had reduced the toxicity of the soil.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Institute of Soil Science CAS (ISSASIPO0724), the Program of Innovative Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CXTD-Z2005-4), and the International Cooperation Program of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (2006DFA91940), which provided financial support for this work, and Mr. Jian Zhang of Shengli oilfield for help in building and managing the field for bioremediation.

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Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Pollution Remediation, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China

    Wuxing Liu, Yongming Luo, Ying Teng & Zhengao Li

  2. Department of Soil and Water Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-0290, USA

    Lena Q. Ma

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  1. Wuxing Liu
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  2. Yongming Luo
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  3. Ying Teng
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  4. Zhengao Li
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  5. Lena Q. Ma
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Correspondence to Yongming Luo.

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Liu, W., Luo, Y., Teng, Y. et al. Bioremediation of oily sludge-contaminated soil by stimulating indigenous microbes. Environ Geochem Health 32, 23–29 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-009-9262-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-009-9262-5

Keywords

  • Bioremediation
  • Biostimulation
  • In situ
  • Microbial community
  • Oily sludge