Israeli Oil Pond ACF-32

The Use of AquaClean ACF-32 to Accelerate

Breakdown of Crude Petroleum in a Containment Lagoon

Background

Crude petroleum which had been collected from a transport spill was collected and deposited in a 100,000 gallon containment lagoon in the Jordan Valley, with the expectation that the petroleum would biodegrade over time. After several months with little or no degradation observed, alternatives were evaluated to accelerate the petroleum breakdown. A recommendation was made to apply ACF-32, an all natural bacterial consortium produced by Ecological Laboratories, Inc. and sold in North America under the name MICROBE-LIFT IND. Since the lagoon also contained municipal sewage there was adequate nitrogen and phosphorous present to provide the required nutrients for the petroleum degradation. In addition to the ACF-32, FDG, a lipophilic surfactant, was applied to help solubilize the petroleum and further accelerate the biological breakdown.

Treatment Program:

Day 1 - 300ml of FDG + 100 gr of HYDRO + 500 ml ACF-32

Every 3 Days thereafter - 70 ml of FDG + 50 gr of HYDRO + 100 ml of ACF-32

Total of 10 treatments - 6 weeks treatment.

Results and Discusssion
Initial	Pre-Trial
BOD	COD	Sol. COD	TSSTPH	TPH
1,900 mg/L	12,900 mg/L	268 mg/L	55,427 mg/L	25,000 mg/L
After Three Weeks of Treatment
BOD	COD	Sol. COD	TSSTPH	TPH
568 mg/L	4,900 mg/L	268 mg/L	1,750 mg/L	2,915 mg/L

The primary parameter for monitoring the crude petroleum breakdown was Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH). Other parameters tracked were Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Soluble COD, and Total Suspended Solids (TSS).

After three weeks of treatment, a reduction of almost 90% of the TPH was observed. While reductions in BOD and COD of approximately were observed, the BOD numbers were likely artificially low due to possible inhibition or the lack of acclimation of the seed to the components of the petroleum. Soluble COD did not change, which is due to that fact that as soluble COD is broken down more is solublilized by a combination of the added surfactant as well as biosurfactants produced by the bacteria. Once all of the non-solubilized petroleum is solubilized and broken down, the soluble COD will drop to non-detectable levels.

Based on the three week analytical data and physical observations, no further analytical testing was performed to save added cost as no more petroleum was observed in the lagoon.