Environmental & Analytical Toxicology

The Potentials of Chicken Drops in the Remediation of Petroleum Contaminated Agricultural Soil

Abstract

Reginald Chibueze Ohiri, Eugene Nwaogwugwu Onyeike and Augustine Amadike Uwakwe

A study on the potentials of chicken drops in the remediation of petroleum contaminated agricultural soil was carried out. A total of 18 m2 farmland was divided into three sites of 4 m2 each with 2 m spaces in between them. Two out of the three sites were polluted with 40 dm3 of bonny light crude oil and remediated for 16 weeks. The results showed a total percentage degradation of 72.18 ± 0.56 and 59.21 ± 0.54 of aliphatic hydrocarbon, 37.92 ± 0.38 and 29.58 ± 0.36 of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon and 5.26 ± 0.22 and 0.50 ± 0.08 of heavy metals for bioaugmented and natural attenuated sites respectively. However, the highest percentage degradation for aliphatic hydrocarbon was 97.59 ± 0.95 for C24 of the bioaugmented site and 92.46 ± 0.72 for C26 of the natural attenuated site, while the highest degradation rate for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon was 100.00 ± 0.00 for Pyrene, Benzo(k)fluoranthene and Benzo(g,h,i)perylene of both the bioaugmented site and natural attenuated site. However, Chromium had the highest percentage degradation rate for the heavy metals with values of 11.95 ± 0.33 and 1.12 ± 0.25 for the bioaugmented and natural attenuated sites respectively.