Mass culture strategy for bacterial yeast co-culture for degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in marine environment

In the present study a metabolically versatile co-culture with two Bacilli and one yeast strain was developed using enrichment culture techniques. The developed co-culture had affinity to degrade both aliphatic and aromatic fractions of petroleum crude oil. Degradation kinetics was established for designing the fermentation protocol of the co-culture. The developed mass culture strategy led to achieve the reduction in surface tension (26 dynes cm(-1) from 69 dynes cm(-1)) and degradation of 67% in bench scale experiments. The total crude oil degradation of 96% was achieved in 40001 of natural seawater after 28 days without adding any nutrients. The survival of the augmented co-culture was maintained (10(9) cells ml(-1)) in contaminated marine environment The mass culture protocol devised for the bioaugmentation was a key breakthrough that was subsequently used for pilot scale studies with 1001 and 40001 of natural seawater for potential application in marine oil spills. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.