Crude oil contamination in coastal areas leads to unmanageable extent of loss of biological life that negatively impacted on global economy. Intensified physical and chemical clean-up and prevention technologies have found temporary solutions. But present study had revealed that complete removal can be possible by bioremediation using biosurfactant producing marine bacteria. In the present study, a marine biosurfactant producing bacteria Pseudomonas sp. was isolated and biosurfactant activity of the isolate was recorded. In drop-collapse test, drop was collapsed within 10sec, emulsification activity was 0.11 OD, and emulsification index was 66.6% and 94% of supplemented crude oil was degraded in vitro by the isolate. The isolate degraded the crude oil under extremes of pH ranges between 4 and 9 and at salt concentrations from 1% to 15%. GC-MS analysis on degraded end product of crude oil showed complete mineralization of crude oil into low molecular weight compounds of octadecane, pentadecane, heptadecane, trideca -2,4,6,10-tetraene, 3,6 dimethoxy flourescene, nitrilomorphinan, dotriacontane, and hentriacontane. So, the bacterial isolate Pseudomonas sp. can be effectively utilized for bioremediation of crude oil in marine environment in a controlled way.
