LABORATORY STUDIES ON THE BIOREMEDIATION OF SOIL CONTAMINATED BY DIESEL

The most widely used energy and fuel resources are hydrocarbons such as crude oil and petroleum distillates. The accidental discharge of these petroleum products contribute in making hydrocarbons the most common environmental pollutants. Bioremediation helps to destroy or render harmless various contaminants using natural biological activity. The present study utilizes the potential of bioremediation to remediate soil contaminated with diesel. Eight bioreactors were used for the study, out of which four bioreactors were maintained at optimum environmental conditions and the remaining four were kept without any maintenance to serve as control bioreactors. Contaminated soil was prepared by mixing fresh soil and diesel so as to attain 10% TPH concentrations by weight of soil. Each bioreactor was filled with 3 kg of contaminated soil.