Application of a biofilm formed by a mixture of yeasts isolated in Vietnam to degrade aromatic hydrocarbon polluted wastewater collected from petroleum storage.

In this study, three good biofilm-forming yeast strains, including Candida viswanathii TH1, Candida tropicalis TH4 and Trichosporon asahii B1, were isolated from oil-contaminated water and sediment samples collected in coastal zones of Vietnam. These strains were registered in the GenBank database with the accession numbers JX129175, JX129176 and KC139404 for strain TH1, TH4 and B1, respectively. The biofilm formed by a mixture of these organisms degraded 90, 85, 82 and 67% of phenol, naphthalene, anthracene and pyrene, respectively, after a 7-day incubation period using an initial concentration of 600 ppm phenol and 200 ppm of each of the other compounds. In addition, this biofilm completely degraded these aromatic compounds, which were from wastewater collected from petroleum tanks in Do Xa, Hanoi after 14 days of incubation based on gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis. To the best of our knowledge, reports on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon and phenol degradation by biofilm-forming yeasts are limited. The results obtained indicate that the biofilm formed by multiple yeast strains may considerably increase the degradation efficiency of aromatic hydrocarbon compounds, and may lead to a new approach for eliminating petroleum oil-contaminated water in Vietnam.