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Removal of hydrocarbon from refinery tank bottom sludge employing microbial culture

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Abstract

Accumulation of oily sludge is becoming a serious environmental threat, and there has not been much work reported for the removal of hydrocarbon from refinery tank bottom sludge. Effort has been made in this study to investigate the removal of hydrocarbon from refinery sludge by isolated biosurfactant-producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa RS29 strain and explore the biosurfactant for its composition and stability. Laboratory investigation was carried out with this strain to observe its efficacy of removing hydrocarbon from refinery sludge employing whole bacterial culture and culture supernatant to various concentrations of sand–sludge mixture. Removal of hydrocarbon was recorded after 20 days. Analysis of the produced biosurfactant was carried out to get the idea about its stability and composition. The strain could remove up to 85 ± 3 and 55 ± 4.5 % of hydrocarbon from refinery sludge when whole bacterial culture and culture supernatant were used, respectively. Maximum surface tension reduction (26.3 mN m−1) was achieved with the strain in just 24 h of time. Emulsification index (E24) was recorded as 100 and 80 % with crude oil and n-hexadecane, respectively. The biosurfactant was confirmed as rhamnolipid containing C8 and C10 fatty acid components and having more mono-rhamnolipid congeners than the di-rhamnolipid ones. The biosurfactant was stable up to 121 °C, pH 2–10, and up to a salinity value of 2–10 % w/v. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing the potentiality of a native strain from the northeast region of India for the efficient removal of hydrocarbon from refinery sludge.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the director of IASST, Guwahati for providing us laboratory facilities to carry out the research work. The corresponding author gratefully acknowledge the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India for providing fellowship to carry out the research under the project sanction vide letter no. BT/PR 9795/BCE/08/590/2007 to the second author of the manuscript. We also thank Dr. D.J. Hazarika and Mr. S. Dey for their assistance in analyzing the sample through LC-MS and GC-MS, respectively.

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  1. Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory, Life Sciences Division, Institute of Advanced Study in Science & Technology (IASST), Paschim Boragaon, Guwahati, 781 035, Assam, India

    Rashmi Rekha Saikia & Suresh Deka

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  1. Rashmi Rekha Saikia
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  2. Suresh Deka
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Correspondence to Rashmi Rekha Saikia.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Saikia, R.R., Deka, S. Removal of hydrocarbon from refinery tank bottom sludge employing microbial culture. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 9026–9033 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1888-2

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