Biodegradation of Monocyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Using Aerobic Enrichments and Pure Anaerobic Strains

Petroleum-related contamination of terrestrial and aquatic environments is turning into a difficult issue to resolve, this particularly comes true about the aromatic hydrocarbons among the petroleum constituents, due to the chemical stability of the aromatic ring. However, there are microbial species that are known to be capable to utilise some of these chemicals as sources of energy and carbon, to grow. In this thesis work, it has been tried to prepare the aerobic enrichments of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and the xylene isomers' (abbreviated as BTEX) degrading microorganisms from the water and soils samples of a polluted site polluted with the petroleum-based pollutants and assemble a robust synthetic microbial consortium to be later used for the bioremediation of the oxic zones of the polluted environmental matrices from BTEX. On the other hand, the use of three anaerobic pure strains, Geobacter metallireducens (DSM 7210, strain GS-15), Desulfosporosinus orientis (DSM 765, strain Singapore I) and Methanosarcina acetivorans (DSM 2834, strain C2A), was planned, of which G. metallireducens is known to possess the anaerobic biodegradation pathway of toluene, and all are supposed to be capable of preforming Direct Interspecies Electron Transfer (abbreviated as DIET), to increase the possibilities of biodegradation of toluene in the anoxic zones of the polluted matrices.