The Use of Kitchen Effluent as Alternative Nutrient Source for Bioremediation of Oil Based Drilling Muds

Abstract

The recovery of oil based drilling muds was monitored for a period of 12 weeks upon inoculation with kitchen effluent. Oil based drilling muds inoculated with varying volumes (200ml, 250ml and 300ml) of kitchen effluent constituted the experimental set-ups, while the control set-ups were made up of oil based drilling muds inoculated with varying volumes (200ml, 250ml and 300ml respectively) of sterile distilled water. In the experimental 4 + 0.12 cfu/ml) as well as phosphate (3.63 mg/l), sulphate (3.0 mg/l) and nitrate (15.60 mg/l) present in the kitchen effluent, both dissolved oxygen (DO) and residual oil concentration (ROC) decrease rapidly while the increasing trends in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) were much more pronounced over the period when compared with the control set-ups. However, analysis of data obtained from this study revealed that the differences between the mean residual oil concentration of the experimental set-ups and that of the control set-ups for A and B are insignificant while that of C differed significantly at 5% probability level indicating that the magnitude of loss in residual oil concentration increases as the volume of kitchen effluent inoculated increases. Therefore, it may be necessary to use kitchen effluent as alternative inoculum in bioremediation of oil contaminated drilling muds. @ JASEM.

J. Appl. Sci. Environ. Manage, December, 2010, Vol. 14 (4) 5 - 11