Mass culture strategy for bacterial yeast co-culture for degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in marine environment

In the present study a metabolically versatile co-culture with two Bacilli and one yeast strain was developed using enrichment culture techniques. The developed co-culture had affinity to degrade both aliphatic and aromatic fractions of petroleum crude oil. Degradation kinetics was established for designing the fermentation protocol of the co-culture. The developed mass culture strategy led to achieve the reduction in surface tension (26 dynes cm− 1 from 69  dynes cm− 1) and degradation of 67% in bench scale experiments. The total crude oil degradation of 96% was achieved in 4000 l of natural seawater after 28 days without adding any nutrients. The survival of the augmented co-culture was maintained (109 cells ml− 1) in contaminated marine environment. The mass culture protocol devised for the bioaugmentation was a key breakthrough that was subsequently used for pilot scale studies with 100 l and 4000 l of natural seawater for potential application in marine oil spills.