Efficacy of Lentinus tigrinus for Kerosene Bioremediation

The strategy for removing pollutants in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner, and the danger of the leakage of hydrocarbon compounds such as kerosene into the environment is important. Therefore, this study was focused on the potential of Lentinus tigrinus fungal biomass for the bioremediation of kerosene. A sample of mushroom Lentinus tigrinus was identified using morphlogical and molecular analyses. Kerosene was obtained from a petrol station (Al- thakafa) in the city of Mosul. Lentinus tigrinus fungal biomass was screened for its capability to degrade kerosene by culturing it on a solid medium supplied with kerosene at concentrations of 2, 4, and 6% compared to the control sample, and a liquid medium mineral salt medium (MSM). GC-MS chromatography was used to analyse the presence of kerosene before and after biodegradation process. After 7 days of incubation, L. tigrinus grew significantly at the probability level 0.01 on the medium supplemented with 2% kerosene (11.6 mm in diameter) compared with the control treatment without kerosense (14.83 mm in diamter). The result showed that kerosene was biodegraded into 15 compounds, most of which are hydrocarbon compounds, but in varying percentages depending on the retention time and percentage concentration of the compounds. The five most common compounds are (1) 1-heptanol, 2-propyl with a percentage of area of 8.60% , (2) 1-octanol 9.83%, (3) hexyl octadecyl ester 12.84%, (4) 7-methyl-1-undecene 12.05% and (5) isopropyl-5-methyl-1-hexanol 10.01%. While after treatment with the biomass of the fungal isolate after 14 days of incubation, kerosene was biodegraded into another 15 compounds with retention times and concentrations different from untreated kerosene. The most common of these compounds are (1) methyl 7,9-tridecadienyl ether 31.03%, (2) 4-fluoro-1-methyl-5-carboxylic acid 16.84%, and (3) triethylene glycol monododecyl ether 11.31%. From the results we can conclude that the biomass of the fungal isolate (identified morphologically and molecularly) has the ability to biologically degrade kerosene, whether on solid or liquid media.