Hydrocarbons eating bacteria?

Question

Does certain kind of bacteria more active towards decomposition/biodegradation of hydrocarbon stuff?

Answer 1

Bacteria of the genus Burkholderia have many uses for bioremediation, they can frequently degrade all sorts of weird things.

It is very beneficial to not directly engineer bacteria for this purpose, but to find some with some natural capability that can be enriched w/o directly tinkering with the DNA. I think you will find that the government (US at least) will basically not allow for the release of modified organisms into the environment, whereas if you simply find some bacteria that has some minimal ability to degrade the substance in question and select for higher metabolizing members of the population the regulatory route is much less daunting.

Answer 2

Bioremediation can be defined as any process that uses microorganisms, fungi, green plants or their enzymes to return the environment altered by contaminants to its original condition. Bioremediation may be employed to attack specific soil contaminants, such as chlorinated hydrocarbons that are degraded by bacteria, or a more general approach may be taken, such as oil spills that are broken down by multiple techniques including the addition of nitrate and/or sulfate fertilizers to facilitate the decomposition of crude oil by indigenous or exogenous bacteria.

Using genetic engineering to create organisms specifically designed for bioremediation has great potential. The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans (the most radioresistant organism known) has been modified to consume and digest toluene and ionic mercury from highly radioactive nuclear waste.

There are a number of cost/efficiency advantages to bioremediation, which can be employed in areas that inaccessible without excavation. For example, hydrocarbon spills (specifically, petrol spills) or certain chlorinated solvents may contaminate groundwater and introducing the appropriate electron acceptor or electron donor amendment, as appropriate, may significantly reduce contaminant concentrations after a lag time allowing for acclimation. This is typically much less expensive than excavation followed by disposal elsewhere, incineration or other ex situ treatment strategies, and reduces or eliminates the need for "pump and treat", a common practice at sites where hydrocarbons have contaminated groundwater.

Answer 3

Hydrocarbon Eating Bacteria

Answer 4

genetically altererd bacteria have been produced to help clean up oil spills.