Growth of a thermophilic oil bacterium on crude oil

Abstract

A thermophilic, oil degradation bacterium was isolated from tar-balls stranded on the beach of Kuala Terengganu. This isolate is known as TAC-0 at present. TAC-0 is a bacterium that has the ability to utilize the hydrocarbons as the sole carbon source and it is a thermophilic bacterium that has the ability to grow at temperature that is higher than normal (>50 ° C). Thermophilic bacterium is one of the essential requirements in bioremediation of oil contaminated sand on beaches as its surface temperature may reach ° to 60 C in the afternoon that may kill all the others non heat resistant bacteria. In this study, the basic characteristics of the bacteria were studied. The specific growth rate of T AC-0 at temperatures of 30 ° ° C, 40 ° C, 50 ° C and 60 C was studied to evaluate its optimum growth temperature. The result shows that the optimal temperature for growth ° was at 41 C. The specific growth rate of T AC-0 at temperature of 30 ° ° C, 40 ° C, 50 C and ° 60 C were 0.026 hr- 1 , 0.073 hr- 1 , 0.064 hr- 1 and 0.055hr- 1 respectively. As for the degradation of crude oil, 30 ° C shows 42.7% of oil removal with a rate of0.27 mgL- 1 hr- 1 . ° At 40 C, it removed 50% of crude oil with a rate of 0.34mgL- 1 hr- 1 . As temperature increased further, it could remove 25.0% of crude oil with a rate of 0.14mgL- 1 hr- 1 ° at 50 C and removal of 5% oil with a rate of0.054mgL- 1 hr- 1 ° at 60 C. In addition, the optimum oil C. Thus, T AC-0 bacterium possesses a very high potential for degrading (clean-up) crude oil that contaminated the beach