Evaluation of Petroleum-Degrading Bacteria and Their Ability in Eliminating Bioenvironmental Pollutants

Biodegradation of hea-vy fuel oil (Mazut) by indigenous competent microorganisms is one of the new fields of biotechnology in petroleum industries. Biocompatibi-lity and inexpensiveness characterist-ics of the method have developed its application day to day. Isolation and identification of oil bacteria can be an effective approach for degrading heavy fuel oil. Sampling of the soil and water sources contamin-ated with oil components was carried out. The samples were incubated on special culture conditions to screen potential microorganisms. Then، their degrading ability was investigated on mazut. Best microorganisms were se-lected and identified. Then، the degr-adation capability for mazut was in-vestigated in matrices containing fix-ed and floating mazut by the strain bacteria. The new strain Entero-bacter cloacae (BBRC10061) was isolated and identified from oil conta-minated soil in Mashhad to biod-egrade mazut. In aerobic condition، 13% of mazut (1%v/v) containing in mineral environment was degraded by BBRC10061 during a 10-day period. Evaluating the fixation and floatation of mazut and also impli-cating the microbial mixture، demon-strated that the floating the mazut and preventing its adoration into the bioreactor wall increased the effici-ency process. However، the mixture was not able to considerably increase the mazut degradation. Discussion & The results of this study represented the strain BBRC1-0061 could be used as a proper degrader for biodegradation of the heav