Enhanced remediation of hydrocarbon contaminated desert soil fertilized with organic carbons

Fertilizing an oily desert soil sample with a mixture of glucose and peptone resulted in enhancing hydrocarbon disappearance in that soil. The magnitude of hydrocarbon attenuation was too high to be attributed to the nitrogen content of the added peptone alone. Fertilization with KNO3 containing the same amount of nitrogen as in peptone, brought about an enhanced hydrocarbon attenuation affect, but lower in magnitude than fertilization with glucose/peptone. Addition of glucose/peptone to a clean desert soil with hydrocarbon utilizing microorganisms resulted in dramatic increase in their numbers, After 13 days, the microorganisms had depleted all the added organic matter and their numbers decreased. In the oily desert soil, glucose/peptone addition also increased microbial numbers, but after utilization of the glucose/peptone, microbial numbers remained high and enhanced attenuation of hydrocarbons was found. The use of sea water instead of fresh water in these experiments blocked the hydrocarbon attenuation effect. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.