Oily bilge wastewater is one of the main sources of hydrocarbons pollution in marine environments due to accidental or clandestine discharges. The main technical challenge for its effective treatment is the presence of stable oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions. In this work we are reporting an enriched microbial consortium from bilge wastewater with remarkable ability to demulsify oil in water emulsions. The consortium showed emulsion-breaking ratios up to 72.6% in the exponential growth phase, while the values range from 11.9 to 8.5% in stationary phase. A positive association was observed between demulsifying ability and microbial adhesion to hydrocarbons, as well as between cell concentration and demulsifying ability. Also, an interesting ability to demulsify under different temperatures, conditions of agitation, and bilge emulsions from different vessels was observed. The Bacterial and Archaeal composition was analyzed by 16S rRNA gene amplicon lllumina sequencing analyses, revealing an assemblage composed of bacterial types highly related to well characterized bacterial isolates and also to non-yet cultured bacterial types previously detected in marine and sediment samples. Hydrocarbonoclastic microbial types such as Marinobacter, Flavobacteriaceae, Alcanivorax and Gammaproteobacteria PYR10d3 were found in high relative abundance (27.0%–11.1%) and types of marine oligotrophs and surfactant degraders such as Thallasospira, Parvibaculum, Novospirillum, Shewanella algae, and Opitutae were in a group of middle predominance (1.7–3.5%). The microbial consortium reported has promising potential for the biological demulsification of bilge wastewater and other oily wastewaters.

中文翻译：

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舱底微生物财团的富集和表征，其中油在水中的乳化液破乳能力用于含油废水处理。

由于意外或秘密排放，含油舱底废水是海洋环境中碳氢化合物污染的主要来源之一。有效治疗的主要技术挑战是稳定的水包油（O / W）乳液的存在。在这项工作中，我们报告了一种来自舱底废水的富集微生物财团，具有显着的将乳状液中的油乳化的能力。该财团在指数生长期显示出破乳率高达72.6％，而在静止期破乳率则在11.9％至8.5％之间。在破乳能力和微生物对碳氢化合物的粘附以及细胞浓度和破乳能力之间观察到正相关。此外，在不同温度，搅拌条件下，其有趣的破乳能力 观察到来自不同容器的舱底乳液。细菌和古细菌的组成通过16S rRNA基因扩增子lllumina测序分析进行了分析，揭示了由与良好表征的细菌分离株以及以前在海洋和沉积物样品中尚未发现的尚未培养的细菌类型高度相关的细菌类型组成的组合。碳氢碎屑微生物类型，例如发现Marinobacter，黄杆菌科，Alcanivorax和γ变形杆菌PYR10d3的相对丰度很高（27.0％–11.1％），并且海洋寡营养生物和表面活性剂降解物的类型如Thallasospira，Parvibaculum，Novospirillum，Shewanella藻类和Opitutae属于一组1.7–3.5％）。报道的微生物联盟在舱底废水和其他含油废水的生物破乳方面具有广阔的潜力。