Bioremediation of Crude Oil Contaminated Agricultural Soil using Cow Dung
Joy Chinyere Ogbu*, Godwin Etuk-Udo, Ogbu Chukwuemeka Prince and Daniel Luka
ABSTRACT
The physico-chemical content of crude oil, cow dung and agricultural soil revealed that there was a positive interaction between the physico-chemical content such as pH, total organic carbon, nitrate and available phosphate contents of the agricultural soil contaminated with crude oil and the quantity of crude oil added to the soil. This may imply the agricultural soil contaminated with crude oil treated with cow dungs at various ratios leads to decrease in soil pH, total organic carbon, nitrate and phosphate as a result of mineralization by the bacterial and fungal isolates in agricultural soil. Bacteria identified in this study include Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus megaterium, Pseudomonas spp., Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. as well as fungi which include Fusarium spp., Penicillium spp., Alternaria spp., Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger had the potential for crude oil bioremediation, having stimulated by cow dung.The result of the GC-MS showed the percentage loses in total petroleum hydrocarbon of agricultural soil contaminated with crude oil treated with cow dungs at various ratios and agricultural soil contaminated with crude oil (control sample) showed (98.37 %), (99.32 %) (99.42 % and 93.44 %) respectively. Agricultural soil contaminated treated with cow dungs at various ratios showed the highest percentages of total hydrocarbon lost.
