Identity of micro organisms and enzymes that bio-degrade the surfactants, required to disperse heavy petroleum oil, in a model environment

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A biodegradable surfactant might be used to clean water or soil contaminated with oil. The problem Green On has raised in this research proposal is the need to understand the mechanisms by which its proprietary surfactant that contains amphipathic molecules, and charged chelating agents will degrade in the environment. Understanding whether and how the surfactant is biodegradable may have tremendous commercial value for Green On. Cultures of micro organisms from soil, water or other sources with the surfactant will be analyzed by GC-MS, GC-FID to determine the rate at which the product degrades in a model environment. Analyzing the bacteria or fungal micro organisms by LC-ESI-MS/MS will reveal the specific species and enzyme systems that may degrade the surfactant. There is good reason to support the feasibility of this approach. This research will produce analytical measurements of the rate of degradation of the oil dispersant product DXR in soil and water. The oil dispersant contains the polymeric detergents triton x-100, triton-45, tall oil, xylene sulfone, EDTA and other amphipathic molecules for which there is no general test. Instrumental analysis methods such as Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and GC-FID (Flame Ionization Detection) and liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) will have to be developed to quantify the amount of the DXR dispersant in the model environment over time. In some instances LC-ESI-MS/MS may be used to show agreement with GC techniques. The immediate research challenges will be to determine the working range of DXR concentrations required to disperse oil in a model environment and to test bacteria obtained from the soil, lakes or sewers to degrade DXR. The main technical challenge will be to measure the rate of degradation of the product in the presence of soil, water and micro-organisms within a model environment using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and GC-FID (Flame Ionization Detection). Characterizing the proteins of the bacteria species identified in the bacterial population derived from the surfactant will be a long term goal of this research project.