Petroleum Degradation, Biosurfactant and Laccase Production by Fusarium neocosmosporiellum RH-10: A Microcosm Study

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of crude oil removal by fungal strains isolated from Arak refinery. The results showed that the RH10 strain is a potent strain as a surfactant producer and degrader of petrochemical hydrocarbons. The strain was identified as a Fusarium neocosmosporiellum and could degrade 58% of hydrocarbons in the minimal medium and reduce the surface tension from 45 to 26.5 mN m⁻¹. Moreover, residual crude oil analysis with Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry showed that this strain was able to degrade 50% of aliphatic compounds. To investigate the mechanism of degradation, oxidase enzymes were assayed and it was found that F. neocosmosporiellum can produce 1.94 U L⁻¹ of laccase in 10 g L⁻¹ crude oil. Carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and soil pattern optimization in a microcosm study showed that this strain removed 44% and 27% of the crude oil from contaminated soil in 1% and 5% crude oil concentrations, respectively. Under optimum condition, 9.66 g kg⁻¹ crude oil was removed by F. neocosmosporiellum when the initial oil concentration was 50 g kg⁻¹, at the end of 150 days microcosm experiment. The results demonstrated the promising potential of fungi strain for cleaning of contaminated soil.

KEYWORDS:

• Biosurfactant
• crude oil
• microcosm study
• mycoremediation
• Fusarium neocosmosporiellum
• laccase enzyme

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Tehran under grant number 321265/1/01.