Bioremediation of olive oil mill wastewater: chemical alterations induced by Azotobacter vinelandii

An environmentally friendly bioremediation system of olive oil mill wastewater (OMWW) is studied with respect to its physicochemical characteristics and degradation efficiency on major characteristic constituents. The method exploits the biochemical versatility of the dinitrogen fixing bacterium Azotobacter vinelandii (strain A) to grow in OMWW at the expense of its constituents and to transform it into an organic liquid fertilizer. The system eliminates the phytotoxic principles from OMWW and concomitantly enriches it with an agriculturally beneficial microbial consortium along with useful metabolites of the latter. The end product, branded "biofertilizer", is used as soil conditioner and liquid organic fertilizer. Growth of A. vinelandii in OMWW results in the decline of content of most of the compounds associated with phytotoxicity, and this is confirmed by the assessment of degradation yields. In parallel, during the process several other compounds noncommittally undergo degradation and biotransformation. More specifically, the biofertilization system is capable of achieving removal yields as high as 90 and 96% after 3 and 7 days of treatment, respectively. Statistical analysis of the results showed that between the periods of operation no significant difference occurs with respect to the degradation yield. Moreover, the degradation yield from 3 to 7 days of continuous operation of the system remains almost unaltered during 2 consecutive years.