ABSTRACT
The capability of the aqueous biosurfactant (BS) solutions to remove crude oil from the crude oil-contaminated sand. However, increased concentration of BSs beyond CMC did not enhance further removal of crude oil from the contaminated sand. The cell-free culture supernatants were also found to be efficient in separating the crude oil from the contaminated sand and exhibited almost similar efficiency as compared to the purified BS solutions. The control with only distilled water was able to remove only 26.2% while SDS could be able to separate 58.6% of crude oil from the contaminated sand. The separation of the residual oil from the sludge gradually increased with the increase in BS concentration. Separation of oil was up to 7% sludge concentrations, but above this concentration, there was no further increase in the release of the residual crude oil from the sludge, as they could not form homogenous slurry.
