CHM07 Extraction of Fungi from Soil Contaminated with Petroleum and Testing Them for Crude Oil Degradation Capability

Abstract

The excessive and haphazard use of petroleum or its byproducts has resulted in petroleum waste, a serious environmental issue.  It's interesting to note that bacteria now dominate the breakdown of petroleum. In order to clean up the environment from petroleum waste, fungi were separated from soils containing petroleum waste and their capacity to break down light and moderate crude oil (MCO and LCO) was assessed. In the north of Baghdad, twenty-one locations with petroleum contamination were investigated. To separate fungus from soil, the serial dilution approach was applied. Fungal community colony forming units (CFU) and the proportion of commonly isolated fungal genera and species per location were computed. Temperature, electrical conductivity (EC), hydrogen ion (pH), and physiochemical properties were all measured. Considering. From the polluted soils, a greater variety of fungus were identified. The most frequently observed genus was Aspergillus species. The greatest number of fungal colonies (115x106 CFU/gm) was found at Site S13. Temperature ranged from 22.4 to 24.9 °C, pH from 7 to 9.3, and EC from 0.1 to 0.8. Crude oil was decomposable by all 10 species of fungi. In terms of growth rate, Paecilomyces variotii was able to break down the two types of oil crude the best (FGR at 7.8), with Fusarium pallidoroseum coming in second (FGR at 6.5 of MCO and LCO at 7.2). Emericella nidulans grew the least on the LCO medium (FGR at 4.5), while Aspergillus flavus grew the least on the MCO medium (FGR at 4.8).