Bioremediation of engine-oil contaminated soil using local residual organic matter
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecotoxicology, Environmental Contamination and Remediation
- Keywords
- petroleum, bioremediation, residual organic matter, circular economy, valorisation
- Copyright
- © 2019 Robichaud et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Bioremediation of engine-oil contaminated soil using local residual organic matter. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27696v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27696v1
Abstract
Soil remediation industries continue to seek technologies to speed-up treatment and reduce operating costs. Some processes are energy intensive and, in some cases, transport can be the main source of carbon emissions. Residual fertilizing matter (RFM), such as organic residues, have the potential to be beneficial bioremediation agents. Following a circular economy framework, we investigated the feasibility of sourcing RFMs locally to reduce transport and assess possible bioremediation efficiency gains. RFMs were recruited within 100 km of the treatment site: ramial chipped wood (RCW), horse manure (MANR) and brewer spent grain (BSG). They were added to the land treatment unit’s baseline fertilizer treatment (FERT, ‘F’) to measure if they improved the remediation efficiency of an engine oil-contaminated soil (7500 ± 100 mg kg-1). Results indicate that MANR-F was the only amendment more effective than FERT for PHC reduction, while emitting the least CO2overall. RCW-F was equivalent to FERT but retained more moisture. Although BSG contributed the most nitrogen to the soil, BSG-F retained excessive moisture, emitted more VOCs, contained less soil O2, and was less effective than the baseline treatment. Significantly more of the C16-C22fraction was removed (63 ± 22%) than all other fractions (C22-C28, C28-C34, C34-C40), which were equally removed. Microbial community-level physiological profiling (CLPP) was conducted with Biolog EcoplatesTM, and catabolic diversity differed between treatments (utilization rates of 31 carbon sources). MANR-F has the potential to increase PHC-remediation speed and efficiency compared to inorganic fertilizer alone. Other RFM promote moisture retention and diverse microbial catabolic activity. A variety of RFM are present across the globe and some can offer low-cost amendments to boost remediation efficiency, while reducing treatment time compared to traditional fertilizer-only methods.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.