Investigation of microbial influences on seafloor gas-hydrate formations

Abstract

Microbial communities flourish at gas hydrate occurrences in ocean sediments. Studies are reported in this paper on the laboratory production, separation, characterization and hydrate catalysis of biosurfactants from cultures of the Bacillus subtilis bacterium associated with Gulf of Mexico gas-hydrate accumulations. The B. subtilis bacterium from ATCC 21332 species was cultured anaerobically with glucose as carbon-source to produce surfactin, one of the more potent surface active agents known. The surface-active agent was removed from the broth in foam created by bubbling inert gas through the mixture, and biosurfactant was then recovered from the collapsed-foam distilled water solution by acid precipitation and dichloromethane extraction. According to HPLC spectra, five surfactin isomers were identified in the sample of laboratory-generated biosurfactant. Recovered surfactin was then used to perform gas-hydrate formation studies in porous media saturated with the surfactin-water solution. Gas-hydrate induction time and formation rate determinations showed that the anaerobically-produced biosurfactants catalyzed hydrate formation markedly. The tests suggest prolific surfactin production by the B. subtilis bacterium and of other species under prevailing anaerobic conditions around seafloor gas hydrates that promotes hydrate formation and the propensity of the bioproduct to be dispersed in the porous media by natural gas vents.