Oil-Contaminated Water Treatment

Sustainable Bioremediation of Industrial Wastewater

CL Solutions provides a special consortium of microbes for oil-contaminated water treatment.   Under various conditions, the oil removal rate was as much as 1,300 mg/L/day.  In some situations the remediation goal is simply to remove the visible sheen or separate-phase oil.  With aeration, CL Solutions microbes were able to remove the visible oil layer and reduce the TPH concentration from 29% to less than 1% in 30 days at a waste oil lagoon. For more information and other case studies click here.

A special consortium of microbes removed the visible oil layer from this wastewater.

Oil-Water Separator Discharge Improvement

Similar to waste water treatment in lagoons, Petrox is used to improve the performance of industrial and commercial oil-water separators by degrading dissolved-phase oil.  The treatment goal is to reduce the TPH concentration to below discharge limits to avoid fines, surcharges and potential discontinuation of service.  The Petrox organisms may be introduced into the collection and treatment system at any point,  but are usually added to the collection or equalization sump for longer contact time.  In most cases, the dissolved phase total petroleum hydrocarbons  (TPH) is reduced by 50% to 90% in a manner of days.

For example, at a large city municipal Petrox reduced the TPH discharge from 25.9 to 7.40 mg/L in three days.  At smaller retail oil-change centers the reduction was from 278 mg/L TPH to 14.1 mg/L TPH  in 21 days.  The biological treatment is maintained by adding a gallon of Petrox to the sump weekly.

The cost for maintaining discharge compliance at these applications is as little as $250 per month.

PAH Bioremediation

The results of a recent bench-scale test confirmed the effectiveness of a special blend of CL Solutions’ microbes formulated for PAH bioremediation.  The test results showed that after two weeks, the total concentration of 15 PAH compounds decreased by 85% from a total of 358 mg/kg to 50.9 mg/kg.  Benzo(A)pyrene is often a most difficult PAH to remove. The test showed that the custom blend reduced the benzo(A)pyrene concentration from 24.5 mg/kg to 3.68 mg/kg.  Tests will continue to determine whether even greater effectiveness can be achieved over 30 days.

In-Situ Petroleum Bioremediation Rates With Petrox

Recent data from field applications of Petrox bioremediation show degradation rates of 100 to 500 micrograms per liter (ug/ml) per day. These degradation rates are for total petroleum hydrocarbons or total BTEX, depending on the site monitoring requirements.

Achieving high degradation rates requires high initial concentrations. Initial concentrations of 1,000 to 10,000 ug/l were used to develop these degradation rates.

At lower concentrations, the degradation rates depend on effective distribution of microbes for cell to contaminant contact. Secondly, desorption of petroleum constituents from submerged soil may cause rebound and suggest lower degradation rates. For these reasons we cannot calculate a degradation rate for petroleum at low concentrations.

In situ Heavy Oil Bioremediation in Alberta

Using a special microbial blend, Delta Environmental has been successfully bioremediating high concentrations of heavy oil in soil around pipelines and oil production equipment.  At a typical site, Delta reduced the concentration of petroleum C34 to >C50 from 130,000 mg/Kg to less than 10,900 in 30 days.  That is a removal rate of 3,970 mg/Kg/day.  This approach not only benefits the environment and meets green cleanup standards, but saves money and equipment downtime for the facility.

The Basics of Petroleum Bioremediation

For a brief summary of the basics of petroleum bioremediation follow this link Basics of Petroleum Bioremediation