CASE STUDY / OIL AND GAS

Oil-Contaminated Soil Test: Native Bacteria Plus Oxygen Beat Every Bacteria Product

A controlled soil comparison test found that DRP Accelerator, sprayed with no bacteria added at all, cleared more hydrocarbon in four weeks than every treatment that skipped the accelerator, including three bacteria products bought on the open market. East Texas sandy soil was mixed with oil from a well head to about 26,000 parts per million (ppm) of hydrocarbon, then split into twelve containers for six paired treatments, from an untreated control to three purchased bacteria products. In each pair, one container was sprayed weekly with diluted DRP Accelerator and the other with plain water, and after four weeks every sample went through hexane extraction and gravimetric testing to measure what hydrocarbon remained. Sprayed with no bacteria added, the accelerator took the soil from about 26,000 ppm to under 16,000 ppm on its own. Paired with added bacteria it reached under 10,000 ppm, and one purchased bacteria product improved by almost 80 percent once the accelerator was added alongside it. This is the case that explains the hydrocarbon cleanup formulation of DRP Accelerator, which pairs the oxygen carrier with a bacteria package, the one place in our program where bacteria are added to the mix.

Twelve containers, six treatments, one clear result: oxygen mattered more than which bacteria were in the soil.

A controlled comparison test mixed East Texas sandy soil with oil from a well head to a hydrocarbon level of about 26,000 parts per million (ppm), then split the soil into twelve containers for six paired treatments.
Each of six treatments, a no added bacteria control, a treated absorbent with added bacteria, plain cotton husk, and three bacteria products purchased on the open market, was run as a pair: one container sprayed weekly with diluted DRP Accelerator, the other sprayed with an equal amount of water.
After four weeks, DRP Accelerator sprayed on soil with no added bacteria, using only the bacteria already present in the soil, reduced hydrocarbon content from about 26,000 ppm to under 16,000 ppm, a reduction of about 40 percent.
DRP Accelerator sprayed alongside added bacteria reduced hydrocarbon content to under 10,000 ppm, a reduction of about 60 percent, in the same four weeks.
One of the three purchased bacteria products showed almost an 80 percent improvement in performance when paired with DRP Accelerator, compared with that same product sprayed with water alone.
Hydrocarbon content in every sample was measured by hexane extraction and a gravimetric procedure at the end of the four week test.
The hydrocarbon cleanup formulation of DRP Accelerator pairs the oxygen carrier with a bacteria package, the one exception to a program that otherwise adds no bacteria and no enzymes.

Published September 24, 2026

The system

This case comes from a controlled comparison test, not a customer site. East Texas sandy soil, about 3 to 4 cubic feet of it, was mixed with oil from a well head in East Texas until the clumps were broken up and the oil was worked evenly through the soil. The mixed soil was then divided into twelve containers, each 4 inches deep and 4.5 inches round, and grouped into six pairs. Each pair carried a different treatment: a no added bacteria control, a treated absorbent with added bacteria, plain cotton husk, and three bio-remediation products purchased on the open market. The study document does not name the three purchased products, the lab that ran the testing, or the exact date of the test.

The problem

The soil started at about 26,000 ppm of hydrocarbon, with every container filled from the same mixed batch, so all six treatments began from the same contamination level. The test was built to answer a question the market usually skips past: when a bio-remediation product underperforms, is the problem the bacteria in it, or is it that none of the bacteria present, purchased or native, have enough oxygen to do the work? Three of the six treatments relied on a bought bacteria product, a fourth used an absorbent with bacteria already added, a fifth was plain cotton husk, and the sixth had no added bacteria at all, only whatever was already living in the soil.

What we did

Every pair split the same way: one container sprayed weekly with diluted DRP Accelerator, the other sprayed with an equal amount of water, so oxygen supply was the one variable that changed within each pair. The soil was worked to about one inch deep to mix the bacteria treatment in at the start, and spraying continued every seven days for four weeks. On the no added bacteria pair, the accelerator carried oxygen to whatever bacteria were already in the soil, nothing else. On the other five pairs, it carried oxygen to whichever bacteria that treatment had introduced. This is the one place in our program where bacteria are added at all: the hydrocarbon cleanup formulation of DRP Accelerator pairs the oxygen carrier with a bacteria package, built for hydrocarbon work. Everywhere else, we add no bacteria and no enzymes.

The report also gives two ways to apply it on an actual site, by contamination depth:

Depth of contamination	Application method	Repeat interval
Surface	Dilute to 5 to 10 percent in fresh water and spray until it soaks into the soil	Every 7 to 10 days
Deeper	Inject the diluted solution to the depth of the contamination, or dig a trench, fill it with the solution, and let it soak in	Every 7 to 10 days

How it was measured

The spray schedule ran once every seven days for four weeks. At the end, the entire contents of each container were dumped into a larger container and the soil was mixed again before sampling. Hydrocarbon content on all twelve containers was run through a hexane extraction and gravimetric procedure, a standard lab method for measuring extractable hydrocarbon by weight. The study document does not name the lab or the technician who ran the extractions, and it does not report a starting ppm for each individual container, only the roughly 26,000 ppm starting point for the batch as a whole.

Results

DRP Accelerator, sprayed with no bacteria added, outperformed every treatment that did not get the accelerator, regardless of which bacteria product was in that pair.

Treatment	Hydrocarbon after four weeks	Change from about 26,000 ppm
No added bacteria, DRP Accelerator only (native soil bacteria)	Under 16,000 ppm	About 40 percent reduction
Added bacteria plus DRP Accelerator	Under 10,000 ppm	About 60 percent reduction
One purchased bacteria product, with DRP Accelerator vs. that same product alone	Not reported in ppm	Almost 80 percent better performance with the accelerator than without it

The study document states plainly that the no added bacteria pair, using only the bacteria naturally occurring in the soil, outperformed any treatment that did not receive the accelerator. It does not report individual ppm results for the plain cotton husk pair or the other two purchased bacteria products, only that the pattern held: adding oxygen improved every pairing, and the size of the improvement varied by which bacteria were already in that container.

Limitations

This is a controlled comparison test in twelve small containers, not a field trial at an active spill site, and conditions at a real well head, pipeline or tank battery will differ from soil that was tilled once and sprayed on a schedule. The study document does not name the three purchased bacteria products, the lab that ran the extractions, or the exact date of the test, and it reports ppm results for only two of the six treatments plus one relative comparison for a third; the rest are described only as part of the pattern, without individual numbers. Each treatment ran as a single pair, not a larger replicated sample. The document lists what actually sets bioremediation time on a real site: the level and type of contamination, the toxicity of the pollutant, soil pH and temperature, and other soil characteristics such as porosity, none of which a four week container test can fully represent. For a future customer, a result like this is a goal we measure, not a promise.

Proof assets

The study document, “Comparison Study of Bioremediation Using DRP Accelerator,” which records the setup, the six paired treatments, and the hexane extraction and gravimetric results referenced in this case.
This is a controlled comparison test, not a customer site, so no customer name is at issue on this page.

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