Biosurfactant assistance in crude oil degradation by halophilic Bacillus cereus ND1

摘要

Moderately halophilic and crude oil degrading strain ND1 was isolated from the Dwarka sea coast, Gujarat, India (22 14' N, 69 degrees 01' E). I6S rRNA analysis confirmed the isolate ND1 as Bacillus cereus which efficiently degraded 90% of crude oil evaluated by gravimetric analysis. Alkanes present in crude oil, degraded by isolate ND1 were identified. Increasing oil displacement activity and reduction in surface tension in the presence of crude oil proved production of biosurfactant and its assistance in oil degradation. It was capable of reducing surface tension up to 30 dynes/cm and shown 72.02% emulsification activity with crude oil. The produced biosurfactant was found to be lipopeptide, characterized by Thin Layer Chromatography and FTIR analysis. Fatty acid component of biosurfactant was identified as n-hexadecanoic acid (C16) with molecular weight of 256.42 Da by GC-MS analysis.