Growth Study and Hydrocarbonoclastic Potential of Microorganisms Isolated from Aviation Fuel Spill Site in Ibeno, Nigeria

The growth study and hydrocarbonoclastic potential of microorganisms isolated from aviation fuel spill sites at Inua-eyet Ikot in Ibeno, Nigeria were examined using standard microbiological methods. The results of the analysis revealed that the viable plate count of microorganisms in the polluted soil ranged from 2.2 ± 0.04 × 10 3 to 3.4 ± 0.14 × 10 6 cfu/g for bacteria and 1.4 ± 0.5 × 10 2 to 2.3 ± 0.4 × 10 4 cfu/g for fungi while count of biodegraders ranged from 1.2 ± 0.4 × 10 3 to 2.1 ± 0.8 × 10 5 cfu/g. A total of 11 microbial isolates comprising of Micrococcus , Klebsiella , Flavobacterium , Bacillus , Pseudomonas , Candida , Aspergillus , Cladosporium , Penicillium , Saccharomyces and Fusarium were characterized. The ability of the selected isolates to utilize the pollutant (aviation fuel) as their sole source of carbon and energy was examined and noticed to vary in growth profiles between the isolates. The results of their degradability after 28 days of incubation shows that species of Cladosporium , Pseudomonas , Candida , Bacillus , Micrococcus and Penicillium were the most efficient Aviation fuel degraders with percentage weight loss of 86.2, 78.4, 78, 56, 53 and 50.6 respectively. Flavobacterium , Saccharomyces and Aspergillus exhibited moderate growth with percentage weight loss of 48, 45.8 and 43.4 respectively while Klebsiella and Fusarium species showed minimal growth with percentage weight loss of 20 and 18.5 respectively. The results imply that the most efficient biodegraders like Cladosporium , Pseudomonas , Candida , Bacillus and Microoccus could tolerate and remove aviation fuel from the environment.