Research on phytoremediation of petroleum contaminated soils

The phytoremediation, enhancing phytoremediation, as well as the degradation kinetic of petroleum were investigated under field experiment. Corn and alfalfa were taken as remediation plants and the experimental bacteria were Arthrobanter species. The results indicated that the oil degradation rates of corn and alfalfa remediation areas reached 42.5% and 44.7% after 150 days of bioremediation, which were increased by 100.5% and 110.8% compared with that in control area, respectively, while the degradation rates of the corn and alfalfa remediation areas that added exogenous bacteria reached 72.8% and 63.9%, which were increased by 71.3% and 42.1% compared with that in the phytoremediation areas, respectively. It found that phytoremediation was enhanced greatly by adding exogenous bacteria and the degradation kinetic equation of petroleum fitted pseudo-first-order kinetics.