Performance Evaluation Of Bacterial Consortium For Biodegradation Of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon: A Comparative Strategic Biostimulation Study

Abstract This research work demonstrated the comparative study of the efficacy of poultry litter extract (PLE) and inorganic fertilizer (NPK) as biostimulating agents for enhancing total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) degradation of petroleum refinery sludge (PRS) with bioaugmentation of an indigenously developed bacterial consortium. In this study, six sets of treatments such as natural attenuation, bioaugmentation with the indigenously developed bacterial consortium, and various biostimulation strategies with (MSM100, PLE100, NPK100, MSM50+PLE50, and MSM50+NPK50) were performed to meet 100% nutrient source for bacterial growth to enhance TPH degradation. Among all, the combined sources of MSM50+PLE50 showed the best performance by degrading the TPH up to 91.3 ± 4.1% within 28 d of the incubation period. The GC-FID analysis confirmed the efficacy of TPH degradation of PRS when PLE amendment with MSM. Further, the removal of maltene and asphaltene was also achieved 92 ± 3.7% and 52 ± 2.2% during this treatment. TPH degradation fitted to first-order kinetics with a rate constant 0.09 d-1 and half-life period of 7.7 d for MSM50+PLE50 amendment treatment along with bacterial consortium as bioaugmentation. This study revealed the implementation of the PLE amendment not only preferred as a nutrient source for bacterial growth but also enhanced TPH biodegradation in an eco-friendly strategic way by dropping the practice of inorganic salts.