Sodium Potassium Tribasic Scifair Projects

Bacteria

Bacteria can be both harmful and helpful. One helpful application of bacteria is to use them to clean up oil spills.

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Objectives/Goals

This project was designed to identify the concentration of sodium phosphate tribasic at which oil-degrading bacteria would most effectively remediate oil-contaminated water. By pinpointing this concentration, biostimulation of oil-degrading bacteria can be maximized using a preset level of nutrients which can enhance microorganisms digestion of hydrocarbons. Oil spills, ubiquitous catastrophes in recent times, can be handled cost-efficiently using this method, without the production of toxic byproducts.

Methods/Materials

Six containers were filled with a constant amount of water, oil, and oil-degrading microbe suspension. Then, varying amounts of Na(3)PO(4) were added to the containers, starting from 0ppm in the control and thereon increasing by increments of 500ppm until the highest dosage, 2500ppm, was applied to the last container. Every 4 days, starting from Day 2, samples were taken to a laboratory for analysis of remaining hydrocarbon.

Results

Laboratory analysis revealed that the container with 2500ppm of Na(3)PO(4) had the least amount of hydrocarbons remaining. Other containers also presented substantial evidence that Na(3)PO(4) can boost the performance of the bacteria, speeding up oil degradation. Some anomalies were present in the data, so scatter plots with trend lines were created to show the relative rate of hydrocarbon loss.

Conclusions/Discussion

The remaining amount of hydrocarbons in the containers implied that the higher the Na(3)PO(4) concentration (less than 2500ppm), the higher the amount of hydrocarbons degraded. During the conditions that prevailed in this experiment, 2500ppm of Na(3)PO(4) was found to be the optimum concentration necessary for the degradation of oil in water by certain bacteria. 3rd party contributor