Bioremediation of creosote contaminated soil in both laboratory and field scale: Investigating the ability of methyl-β-cyclodextrin to enhance biostimulation

• Bioremediation was enhanced in creosote contaminated soil by nutrients and CD.
• 2–3 ringed PAHs were degraded when soil nutrient and moisture content was optimized.
• In the lab scale, CD enhanced the removal of absorbed PAHs with complex structure.
• Bioremediation worked in the field scale but CD impact seemed to be low.
• CD may increase PAH yield in the chemical analysis and thus hinder result comparison.

We investigated the bioremediation of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in historically creosote contaminated soil using both laboratory and field scale experiments. We found that nutrient amendments and circulation of methyl-β-cyclodextrin (CD) solution enhanced soil microbial degradation capacity. In the laboratory experiment, the degradation of lower molecular weight, 2–3 ringed PAHs was achieved already by circulating nutrient solution and the use of CD mainly increased the desorption and removal of larger, 4–5 aromatic ringed PAH compounds. The 1% CD concentration was most feasible for bioremediation as most of the extracted PAH compounds were degraded. In the 5% CD treatment, the PAH desorption from soil was too fast compared to the degradation capacity and 25% of the total PAH amount remained in the circulated solution. Similar lab-scale results have been generated earlier, but very little has been done in full field scale, and none in freezing conditions. Although freezing stopped circulation and degradation completely during the winter, PAH degradation returned during the warm period in the field test. Circulation effectiveness was lower than in the laboratory but the improved nutrient and moisture content seemed to be the main reason for decreasing soil PAH concentrations. It also appeared that PAH extraction yield in chemical analysis was increased by the CD treatment in field conditions and the results of CD-treated and non-treated soil may therefore not be directly comparable. Therefore, a positive effect of CD on PAH degradation velocity could not be statistically confirmed in the field test. Based on our results, we recommend initiating the bioremediation of PAH contaminated soil by enhancing the microbial degradation with nutrient amendments. The CD seems to be useful only at the later stage when it increases the solubilisation of strongly absorbed contaminants to some extent. More investigation is also needed of the CD effect on the PAH yield in the chemical analysis.