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Updated: May 31, 2026

Prospecting Microbial Strains for Bioremediation and Probiotics Development for Metaorganism Research and Preservation
Published on: October 31, 2019
Terrestrial exposure of oilfield flowline additives diminish soil structural stability and remediative microbial
S J George1, J Sherbone, C Hinz
1Centre for Land Rehabilitation, School of Earth and Environment, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
Abstract:
Onshore oil production pipelines are major installations in the petroleum industry, stretching many thousands of kilometres worldwide which also contain flowline additives. The current study focuses on the effect of the flowline additives on soil physico-chemical and biological properties and quantified the impact using resilience and resistance indices. Our findings are the first to highlight deleterious effect of flowline additives by altering some fundamental soil properties, including a complete loss of structural integrity of the impacted soil and a reduced capacity to degrade hydrocarbons mainly due to: (i) phosphonate salts (in scale inhibitor) prevented accumulation of scale in pipelines but also disrupted soil physical structure; (ii) glutaraldehyde (in biocides) which repressed microbial activity in the pipeline and reduced hydrocarbon degradation in soil upon environmental exposure; (iii) the combinatory effects of these two chemicals synergistically caused severe soil structural collapse and disruption of microbial degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons.
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