Crude oil spills pose a serious threat to the marine environment. This is due to crude oil, in large part, is composed of aromatic, aliphatic, and alicyclic hydrocarbons which are toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic to the marine life. However, the degradation of crude oil spills with bacteria in simulated seawater media is rarely reported. In this study, oil spill in the seawater, especially petroleum, had been successfully degraded by bacterium culture Bacillus subtilis in simulated seawater under 7 and 14 days incubation. Simulated seawater had synthesized based on ASTM D1141-98 for Standard Practice for the Preparation of Substitute Ocean Water. The petroleum recovery was analyzed using Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. In this research, the optimum recovery value of crude oil degradation by the bacterial culture obtained by octadecadienoic acid compound gave a percentage recovery of 8.20% and 8.87% after 7 and 14 days of incubation, respectively. This result indicated that the B. subtilis culture has the ability to degrade crude oil spill in simulated sea water.
Biosurfactant and Degradative Enzymes Mediated Crude Oil Degradation by Bacterium Bacillus subtilis A1