Assessment of In Situ Bioremediation of Oil Contaminated Soil and Groundwater in a Petroleum Refinery: A Laboratory Soil Column Study

Precipitation and seasonal water level fluctuations mostly add to the problem of soil and groundwater contamination and lead to pollution of capillary fringe layer and exacerbation of groundwater contamination. At the Tehran Oil Refining Company (TORC), with critical problem of soil and groundwater pollution, finding a suitable remediation method has been a big concern. As bioremediation is one of the most economically and technically attractive decontamination methods, it was chosen for preliminary study to solve this problem. For simulation of the region, soil column treatment method by using oil habituated indigenous microorganisms of the area was selected. The main purpose was assessing the suitability of bioremediation method in the target area for treatment of capillary fringe layer. Two columns (one as treatment column and the other as a control) were designed and the variation of different parameters including dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, the number of viable and active microorganisms (CFU/mL), and biodegradation rate during 30 working days were recorded. The experiments showed that a major part of degrading microorganisms were facultative anaerobic. pH was not an inhibiting factor and the number of active microorganisms was increasing during aeration time. The results of solvent extraction method also revealed that during 30days, about 6% of total petroleum hydrocarbon in columns was biologically degraded. Finally, it was disclosed that bioremediation method could be effective in solving the area's pollution problem. However, new studies should be conducted to optimize the biodegradation rate and extrapolate from the laboratory scale results to the field ones.