Isolation of Biosurfactant-Producing Bacteria and Their Co-Culture Application in Microbial Fuel Cell for Simultaneous Hydrocarbon Degradation and Power Generation

Biosurfactant-producing microorganisms improve the efficacy of hydrocarbon biodegradation as biosurfactant is essential in making hydrocarbons available for breakdown. The present study reports isolation biosurfactant-producing bacteria that can be used crude oil remediation and to characterize generated during breakdown oil. This also evaluating synergism potentiality simultaneous power generation. Two bacterial strains (Bacillus subtilis strain B1 Pseudomonas aeruginosa B2) were isolated from petroleum-contaminated soils, which are found effective producing biosurfactants degrading sole carbon source. B. exhibited a higher potential production degradation than P. B2. FTIR GC-MS analysis conducted further characterization biosurfactant, revealed surfactant produced by B2 was surfactin rhamnolipid, respectively. application co-culture microbial fuel cells (MFCs) showed among them resulted maximum density 6.3 W/m3 with an open circuit voltage 970 mV while 2.5% v/v containing anolyte. findings indicate oil-degrading has great enhanced generation bioremediation hydrocarbon-contaminated environments. Moreover, MFCs suggested their potent applicability environmental, energy, industrial sectors economical feasible alternative existing technologies.