Naphthalene biodegradation by microbial consortia isolated from soils in Ngaoundere (Cameroon)

Naphthalene, being a ubiquitous pollutant of the environment and a perilous material, its biodegradation has been receiving constant scientific consideration. Microbial consortia isolated from three aged oil-contaminated soils were used to degrade naphthalene in liquid medium. The three consortia (bacteria, fungi and bacteria-fungi complex) have the capacity to use naphthalene as a source of carbon. The highest naphthalene removals were found in bacterial consortia (96.8%; 96.3% and 95.5% for site 1, site 2 and site 3 respectively). The bacteria-fungi consortia showed a good degradation for site 2 and 3 after 30 days. Naphthalene biodegradation by bacteria-fungi complex was the lowest of the three microbial consortia used in this study. A first order exponential decay kinetic model was proposed with values of parameters for each microbial consortium. Therefore, inoculation of microbial consortia isolated from in situ contaminated soil to degrade naphthalene could be considered as a successful method.