Flow Assurance Laboratory, Petroleum Engineering Program, Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai - 600 036, India.
Bio Engineering Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai - 600 036, India.
Environ Sci Process Impacts. 2016 Mar;18(3):386-97. doi: 10.1039/c5em00597c.
The use of microorganisms has been researched extensively for possible applications related to hydrocarbon degradation in the petroleum industry. However, attempts to improve the effect of microorganisms on the viscosity of hydrocarbons, which find potential use in the development of robust models for biodegradation, have been rarely documented. This study investigates the degradation of long chain hydrocarbons, such as hexadecane and eicosane using Pseudomonas fluorescens PMMD3 (P. fluorescens) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa CPCL (P. aeruginosa). P. aeruginosa used here is isolated from petroleum contaminated sediments and the P. fluorescens is from the coastal area, and both have hydrocarbon degrading genes. The degradation of hydrocarbons is studied using carbon profiling and reduction in viscosity pre- and post-degradation of hydrocarbons. The carbon profiling has been obtained using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS), and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) results. GC-MS results have indicated an improved biodegradation of hydrocarbons by 77-93% in one day. The yield coefficients of biomass (YX/S) for P. aeruginosa and P. fluorescens using hexadecane as a carbon source are 1.35 and 0.81 g g(-1), and the corresponding values with eicosane are 0.84 and 0.88 g g(-1). The viscosity of hexadecane is reduced by the order of 53 and 47%, while that of eicosane was reduced by 53 and 65%, using P. aeruginosa and P. fluorescens, respectively. This study also presents information on the activity of enzymes responsible for the hydrocarbon degradation. Pseudomonas species have shown their use in potential applications for bioremediation, oil-spill treatment, and flow assurance. We believe that this study will also provide stringent tests for possible model development for the bioremediation of long chain paraffins suitable for oilfield applications.
已经广泛研究了微生物在石油工业中与碳氢化合物降解相关的潜在应用。然而，为了提高微生物对碳氢化合物粘度的影响，尝试开发稳健的生物降解模型，这方面的研究却很少有文献记录。本研究使用荧光假单胞菌 PMMD3（P. fluorescens）和铜绿假单胞菌 CPCL（P. aeruginosa）来降解长链碳氢化合物，如十六烷和二十烷。这里使用的铜绿假单胞菌是从石油污染沉积物中分离出来的，荧光假单胞菌则是从沿海地区分离出来的，两者都有碳氢化合物降解基因。使用碳谱分析和降解前后碳氢化合物粘度的降低来研究碳氢化合物的降解。碳谱分析使用气相色谱-质谱联用仪（GC-MS）和傅里叶变换红外光谱仪（FTIR）进行。GC-MS 结果表明，一天内碳氢化合物的生物降解率提高了 77-93%。铜绿假单胞菌和荧光假单胞菌以十六烷为碳源时的生物质产率系数（YX/S）分别为 1.35 和 0.81 g g(-1)，相应的以二十烷为碳源时的产率系数分别为 0.84 和 0.88 g g(-1)。使用铜绿假单胞菌和荧光假单胞菌，十六烷的粘度分别降低了 53%和 47%，二十烷的粘度分别降低了 53%和 65%。本研究还介绍了负责碳氢化合物降解的酶的活性信息。假单胞菌已被证明可用于生物修复、溢油处理和流动保障等潜在应用。我们相信，这项研究也将为适合油田应用的长链石蜡生物修复模型的开发提供严格的测试。
