A. Borkumensis degrading Crude Oil

[deleted-385552]

I am a High School Junior planning on conducting an experiment which will deal with Alcanivorax borkumensis' ability to degrade crude oil. I am planning on purchasing crude oil from rawcrudeoil.com for the bacteria to degrade, and ordering seawater from Carolina Biological for a living medium. (I will double check to see if it is within the proper salinity range, but I am not worried.) My independent variable will be the amount of nitrogen in the living medium. (I have another thread going regarding this.)

So, is this a good idea? Some of the questions I have are how to simulate agitation in the water, if crude oil is the proper choice, how to observe and record A. borkumensis' progress, and how large my experiment should be. And finally, "How to get a culture of A. borkumensis for less than the ATCC price of $300 non-profit."

I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could help me out. Thanks.

[deleted-70304]

Hi LanceDaJumbly -

I noticed that you already have a thread going here at Ask an Expert about your project and have gotten some input from an Expert. So that Experts can best help with your questions, it is a good idea to keep your questions in the same thread. That way, Experts will see your questions in context.

Good luck with your project!

Amy
Science Buddies


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