Research Article
Kiraye M, John W and Gabriel K
Abstract
Uganda is currently exploiting petroleum products. This is mainly around the fresh water bodies. However, these water bodies are habitants for several aquatic organisms and also the main drinking water sources. Despite the fact that they are known for several uses both ecological and economical, they are likely to be seriously polluted by crude oil petroleum hydrocarbons (PHs). Therefore they will require to be treated by ecologically friendly methods. Pseudomonas aeruginosa naturally habits Ugandan water bodies and it’s known for no health hazards to human (after boiling the water) and to aquatic organisms. Therefore multiplying its numbers in aquatic environments has no health implications yet it’s known for degrading PHs. Thus the current study aimed at determining the rate at which Pseudomonas aeruginosa can remediate PHs from water of Lake Albert. Method: Water from Lake Albert was collected to laboratory, contaminated with 10% m/v PHs (100g/L). This was then inoculated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa (turbidity of 0.04 absorbance at a wave length of 600 nm) in a 1cm cuvette containing about 3.0×107 colony-forming unit (CFU)/mL. The waters were left at room temperatures to replicate the temperature of the natural water body in Uganda. Results: Results showed that the initial rate, Rbioi was 32.3 g/liter per day for n-hexane soluble PHs. Also, the maximum amount removed when the rate reduced to zero was 89.3/liter. The bioremediation process followed second order kinetics with half-life of 3.9 days. This means the original amount will reduce to half the original amount after 3.9 days (about 93.6 hrs). Pseudomonas aeruginosa significantly (p=0.03) (p<0.05) remediates PHs from Lake Albert water with maximum removal rate between day 1 and day 3. However, physico-chemical factors for example temperature, pH were not investigated in this current study.