BIODEGRADATION OF PETROLEUM INDUSTRY OILY SLUDGE BY BACTERIAL CONSORTIUM AND ITS APPLICATION IN LAND FARMING

Abstract

Oily sludge is considered the most important solid waste resulted from crude oil storage tanks. Conventional
oily sludge treatment methods (landfill and incineration) are high in cost and need specialized equipment and
skilled personnel. Therefore, bioremediation provides a technique for cleaning up oily sludge, totally or mostly,
by enhancing the natural biodegradation processes. The three bacterial isolate Bacillus cereus sp. M1, Bacillus
cereus sp. M7 and Pseudomonas mendocina sp. M10, which were isolated from a soil sample from SidiKerir
branch, have a high capability to degrade oil sludge. A consortium of isolates (M1, M7 and M10) and sp48
(Pseudomonas sp.) was applied for bioremediation of 1% of oily sludge with different inoculum amounts and at
different time periods, where it resulted in higher biodegradation rate of total petroleum hydrocarbons, reaching
89% after 12 days. This consortium was used in bioaugmentation as land farming for oily sludge degradation
which achieved 99.2% removal (biodegradation rate) of total petroleum hydrocarbons and 93.7% of oil and
grease. Results obtained suggest that the bacterial consortium for oil sludge degradation may be better than each
bacterium unaccompanied.