In Situ Bioremediation and Oil Spills

When people think of the term oil spills, most of us think of oil spills in the ocean. But the leakage of oil happens more than just in the ocean.  A few examples include hazardous waste spills, pipeline leakage, crude oil spills from tanks, diesel spills, and gasoline storage tank leaks.. No system of storing or transporting oil is perfect. When things go wrong, bioremediation is one way to help clean the situation.

There are a couple different methods for in situ. First is bioventing, it’s particularly efficient at targeting pollutants from petroleum products.  Bioventing involves injecting oxygen into the soil; this enhances the activity of the microorganism and helps speed up the absorption of the pollutants. It targets petroleum products including gasoline, jet fuels, kerosene, and diesel fuels. Some advantages is that the equipment is easily available and easy to install, cost effective, doesn’t cause much site disturbance, and also treatment time isn’t that long. Some disadvantages are sometimes the concentrations of the pollutants might be toxic to the microbes and also bioventing is not the best option for some types of soil.

Another in situ bioremediation technique is called phytoremediation, which uses plants to extract, degrade, contain, or immobilize contaminants in the soil and water. Certain types of plants digest certain pollutants.