• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.503-506
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• 2002

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.27-35
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• 2024

It was known that crude oil can be mainly divided into saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes. If microbial biodegradation of asphaltenes is effectively viable, additional oil production will be expected from depleted oil reservoir. Meanwhile, biodegradation can be applied to other aspects, such as the bioremediation of spilled oil. In this case, the biodegradation of asphaltenes also plays an important role. It has been already reported that asphaltenes are decomposed by bacterial consortia. However, the biodegradation mechanism of asphaltenes has not been clearly presented. The major reason is that the molecular structure of asphaltenes is complicated and is mainly in a aggregated form. In this paper, it was presumed that the biodegradation process of asphaltenes may follow the microbial oxidation mechanism of saturates and aromatics which are easier biodegradable than asphaltenes among the crude oil components. In other words, the biodegradation process was explained by serial stages; the contact between asphaltenes and bacteria in the presence of biosurfactants, and the decomposition of alkyl groups and fused-rings within the asphaltene structure.