• Clean Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2010

As crude oil with heavier and/or highly oxidized components prevails, purification technologies such as desulfurization, denitrilization and demetalization have become important issues to control contents of sulfur and other impurities affecting the quality of petroleum. Also, the importance of catalyst technologies related with crude oil purification has been emphasized to control the production and yield of products. In this paper, technology trends of impurity removal such as sulfur, nitrogen and metal components from crude oil and catalysts related with purification of crude oil were studied through patent analysis. The patents published or registered in Korea, U. S. A., Japan, and Europe from mid 1970's to 2009 had been analyzed based on the application tendency, the distribution of major applicants, and their active indices, etc. The technology flow was figured out to see the technology trends.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.215-232
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• 2020

Crude oils are essential source of energy. It is majorly found in geographical locations beneath the earth's surface and crude oil is the main factor for the economic developments in the world. Natural crude oil contains unrefined petroleum composed of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and it contains other organic materials like aromatic compounds, sulphur compounds, and many other organic compounds. These hydrocarbons are rapidly getting degraded by biosurfactant producing microorganisms. The present study deals with the isolation, purification, and characterization of biosurfactant producing microorganism from oil-contaminated soil. The ability of the microorganism producing biosurfactant was investigated by well diffusion method, drop collapse test, emulsification test, oil displacement activity, and blue agar plate method. The isolate obtained from the oil contaminated soil was identified as Bacillus subtilis. The identification was done by microscopic examinations and further characterization was done by Biochemical tests and 16SrRNA gene sequencing. Purification of the biosurfactant was performed by simple liquid-liquid extraction, and characterization of extracted biosurfactants was done using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The degradation of crude oil upon treatment with the partially purified biosurfactant was analyzed by FTIR spectroscopy and Gas-chromatography mass spectroscopy (GC-MS).

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.189-195
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• 2005

Industrial development has increase consumption of crude oil and environmental pollution. A large number of microbial lipolytic enzymes have been identified and characterized to date. To development for a new lipase with catalytic activity in degradation of crude oil as a microbial enzyme, Acinetobactor sp. B2 was isolated from soil samples that were contaminated with oil in Daejon area. Acinetobactor sp. B2 showed high resistance up to 10 mg/mL unit to heavy metals such as Ba, Li, Al, Cr, Pb and Mn. Optimal growth condition of Acinetobactor sp. B2 was confirmed $30^{\circ}C$. Lipase was purified from the supernatant by Acinetobactor sp. B2. Its molecular mass was determined to the 60 kDa and the optimal activity was shown at $40^{\circ}C$ and pH 10. The activation energies for the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl palmitate were determined to be 2.7 kcal/mol in the temperature range 4 to $37^{\circ}C$. The enzyme was unstable at temperatures higher than $60^{\circ}C$. The Michaelis constant $(K_{m})\;and\;V_{max}$ for p-nitrophenyl palmitate were $21.8{\mu}M\;and\;270.3{\mu}M\;min^{-1}mg\;of\;protein^{-1}$, respectively. The enzyme was strongly inhibited by $Cd{2+},\;Co^{2+},\;Fe^{2+},\;Hg^{2+},\;EDTA$, 2-Mercaptoethalol. From these results, we suggested that lipase purified from Acinetobactor sp. B2 should be able to be used as a new enzyme for degradation of crude oil, one of the environmental contaminants.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.582-588
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• 1995

A marine microorganism producing biosurfactant was isolated from the oil polluted coast of Chung-Mu in Korea, and was identified as Pseudomonas sp.. It produced the biosurfactanl and its optimum culture conditions for pH and salt concentration were 8.0 and 3.0%, respectively. The productivity of biosurfactant from this strain was affected by the nitrogen source used. For the oil resolvability of the biosurfactant, the residual oil in the culture broth with 2% Kuwait crude oil at each time of 48, 96, and 132hr was investigated by gas chromatography. As result of this experiment, it was verified that the biosurfactant acted on C10-C14, of Kuwait crude oil and so the oil was decomposed. The biosurfactant isolated from the supernatant was purified by adsorption to Amberliter XAD-7 and followed by gel chromatography (Sephadex G-100) and HPLC. The purified biosurfactant showed a high value of emulsifying activity at $40^{\circ}C$ and the emulsifying stability was maintained at the temperature range of $30^{\circ}C$∼$60^{\circ}C$. The purified biosurfactant reduced the interfacial tension of Kuwait crude oil remarkably and showed improved dispersing ability compared to those of commercial surfactants such as Tween 80, Tween 60 and SDS.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.24-30
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• 2011

Tidal flats which are ecologically sensitive, are hard to remediate once they are contaminated by oil spill accidents. Traditional oil remediation measures focus on removal efficiency, and their improper implementation can adversely affect crude oil contaminated coastal areas and greatly disrupt the structure and functions of crude oil contaminated tidal flats. In this study, the oil degradation due to the implementation of remediation measures naturally enhanced using air and natural oil sorbents was evaluated in the lower strata of tidal flats. The effects of air and natural oil sorbents on oil degradation for two concentration levels (< 500 ppm and > 500 ppm) were tested at artificially contaminated tidal flats. Fifty days after these treatments, the natural oil sorbent treatment showed the lowest total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) concentration ($4.46{\pm}1.47%$) at the low concentration level, whereas both air and natural oil sorbent treatments showed high degradation efficiencies at the high concentration level ($29.30{\pm}4.39%$). Although the phosphatase activity decreased for all treatments, there was no significant difference between the decreases for the different treatments; on the other hand, B-glucosidase activities were high for both air and natural oil sorbent treatments. Although degradation efficiencies decreased as the concentration increased, the air provision and natural oil sorbent treatment could be an effective ecological restoration measure for oil contaminated tidal flats while minimizing the environmental impact of the remediation efforts.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.229-235
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• 1995

The surface tension-decreasing biosurfactant was purified from Rhodotorula muciloginosa G-1. The purification procedure was the solvent extraction of culture broth. To ensure complete extraction, the sample was extracted twice with equal volume of ethylacetate. The crude solution was washed with n-hexane to remove unconsumed soybean oil. The crude sample of biosurfactant was applied to Silica gel column chromatography equilibrated with chloroform, and eluted with chloroform : methanol gradient. Serveral solvent system was used to developed the thin layer chromatography (TLC). The purified biosurfactant sample gave one spot (Rf 0.78). It was estimated that biosurfactant was glycolipid about having M.W.1,500 with standard of polyethyleneglycol by Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.31-41
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• 1998

As the leakage of crude oil from tankers breaks out frequently, it caused a serious problem for ocean pollution and calls for developing treatments to handle the leaked crude oil and mitigate the pollution. Thus it is required to develop new purification technolgies and appropriate treatment systems which have sufficient treatment capability in order to cope with the anticipated ocean pollution. In this experiment, A and B type heavy oils were used to make the emulsion of both water containing heavy oil and sea-water containing heavy oil. The following are the main results from this study ; 1. When A and B type heavy oils were added to the original sea-water and treatedin the homogrenizer respectively, the particle of oil beacame smaller in both cases. Under the same condition, while the initial oil density of sea-water containing B-heavy oil is higher than of emulsion with A-heavy oil, the particle of A-heavy oil is finer than that of B-heavy oil. 2. When A and B type heavy oils were added to distilled water and treated in the homogenizer respectively, the particle was more dispersed and finer than that in the case of sea-water in both cases. In this result, the water containing oil formed more stable emulsion than the sea-water containing oil. 3. In this experiment, all emulsions showed oil in water types. 4. Since the oil particle is larger in the sea-water than in the distillated water, interms of elimination of oil, it is thought to be more important to give Membrane treatment after implementing sandfilter, activity carbon, coagulation-sedimentation and floating separation as pre-treatment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.125-125
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• 2005

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.390-396
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• 2013

Biosurfactants have versatile properties and potential industrial applications. A new producer, B. subtilis TU2, was isolated from the underground oil-extraction wastewater of Shengli Oilfield, China. Preliminary flask culture showed that the titer of biosurfactant obtained from the broth of TU2 was ~1.5 g/l at 48 h (718 mg/l after purification), with a reduced surface tension of 32.5 mN/m. The critical micelle concentration was measured as 50 mg/l and the surface tension maintained stability in solution with 50 g/l NaCl and 16 g/l $CaCl_2$ after 5 days of incubation at $70^{\circ}C$. FT-IR spectra exhibited the structure information of both glycolipid and lipopeptide. MALDI-TOF-MS analyses confirmed that the biosurfactant produced by B. subtilis TU2 was a blend of glycolipid and lipopeptide, including rhamnolipid, surfactin, and fengycin. The blended biosurfactant showed 86% of oil-washing efficiency and fine emulsification activity on crude oil, suggesting its potential application in enhanced oil recovery.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.79-87
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• 2013

An unstable yet efficient phenanthrene-degrading bacterium strain Ph-3 was isolated from a petroleum-contaminated site at the Mathura Oil Refinery, India. The strain was identified as Pseudomonas sp. using a polyphasic approach. An analysis of the intermediates and assays of the degradative enzymes from a crude extract of phenanthrene-grown cells showed a novel and previously unreported pattern of 1, 2-dihydroxy naphthalene and salicylic acid production. While strain Ph-3 lost its phenanthrene- degrading potential during successive transfers on a rich medium, it maintained this trait in oligotrophic soil conditions under the stress of the pollutant and degraded phenanthrene efficiently in soil microcosms. Although the maintenance and in vitro study of unstable phenotypes are difficult and such strains are often missed during isolation, purification, and screening, these bacteria constitute a substantial fraction of the microbial community at contaminated sites and play an important role in pollutant degradation during biostimulation or monitored natural attenuation.