Gas chromatographic analyses of kerosene bioremediation displayed distinctive pattern of n-alkane degradation

AbstractKerosene, being one of the most commonly spilled petroleum products, needs to be removed from the polluted areas before it spreads over large habitats. Bioremediation is an environmental friendly approach for the cleanup of contaminated sites and exploits the potential of naturally occurring microbial populations or microorganisms with a known ability to degrade the contaminants. Therefore, it is important to get bacterial isolates with high kerosene degradation abilities for their potential use in kerosene bioremediation. For this reason, twenty previously identified hydrocarbon degraders were further analysed for their potential to degrade kerosene. Primary selection of kerosene degraders was done by using conventional enrichment culture containing 1% kerosene as a sole source of carbon. Gas chromatographic (GC) analyses of 17 pre-selected kerosene degraders displayed distinctive degradation pattern of n-alkanes including C11-C15, C17 and C19 fractions. The bacterial isolates Staphylococcus aure...