ENHANCING BIOREMEDIATION OF OIL CONTAMINATED SOIL IN COLD CLIMATE

Oil hydrocarbon contaminated soil is a global problem which causes need for environmental clean-up to prevent the interference of normal development of flora and fauna Oil hydrocarbon concentration decrease by natural attenuation but it can be very time-consuming. In the research presented we wanted to accelerate oil degradation in contaminated soil. Our preliminary results suggest that nutrients, especially the use of slowly soluble nitrogen, and soil mixing with a bulking agent guaranteed sufficient aeration of the soil and they had together a significant advantage in oil hydrocarbon degradation. Microbial inoculums had only minor effect on degradation We extracted microbes from contaminated soil and enriched oil-degrading consortia and pure cultures, to be able to compare bio-augmentation with biostimulation.