Recent studies show that biofilm substances in contact with nanoplastics play an important role in the aggregation and sedimentation of nanoplastics. Consequences of these processes are changes in biofilm formation and stability and changes in the transport and fate of pollutants in the environment. Having a deeper understanding of the nanoplastics–biofilm interaction would help to evaluate the risks posed by uncontrolled nanoplastic pollution. These interactions are impacted by environmental changes due to climate change, such as, e.g., the acidification of surface waters. We apply fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) to investigate the pH-dependent aggregation tendency of non-functionalized polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles (NPs) due to intermolecular forces with model extracellular biofilm substances. Our biofilm model consists of bovine serum albumin (BSA), which serves as a representative for globular proteins, and the polysaccharide alginate, which is a main component in many biofilms, in solutions containing Na+ with an ionic strength being realistic for fresh-water conditions. Biomolecule concentrations ranging from 0.5 g/L up to at maximum 21 g/L are considered. We use non-functionalized PS NPs as representative for mostly negatively charged nanoplastics. BSA promotes NP aggregation through adsorption onto the NPs and BSA-mediated bridging. In BSA–alginate mixtures, the alginate hampers this interaction, most likely due to alginate–BSA complex formation. In most BSA–alginate mixtures as in alginate alone, NP aggregation is predominantly driven by weaker, pH-independent depletion forces. The stabilizing effect of alginate is only weakened at high BSA contents, when the electrostatic BSA–BSA attraction is not sufficiently screened by the alginate. This study clearly shows that it is crucial to consider correlative effects between multiple biofilm components to better understand the NP aggregation in the presence of complex biofilm substances. Single-component biofilm model systems based on comparing the total organic carbon (TOC) content of the extracellular biofilm substances, as usually considered, would have led to a misjudgment of the stability towards aggregation.
Heat exchangers are used for thickening of various products or desalination of saltwater. Nevertheless, they are used as cooling unit in industries. Thereby, the stainless steel heat transferring elements get in contact with microorganism containing media, such as river water or saltwater, and corrode. After at least two years of utilization the material is covered with bacterial slime called biofilm. This process is called biofouling and causes loss in efficiency and creates huge costs depending on cleaning technique and efficiency. Cleaning a heat exchanger is very expensive and time consuming. It only can be done while the device is out of business.
Changing the surface properties of materials is the best and easiest way to lengthen the initial phase of biofilm formation. This leads to less biofouling (Mogha et al. 2014).
Thin polymer films as novel materials have less costs in production than stainless steel and are easy to handle. Furthermore, they can be functionalzed easily and can be bougth in different sizes all over the world. Because of this, they can reduce the costs of cleaning techniques and lead to a longer high efficiency state of the heat exchanger. If the efficiency of the heat exchanger decreases, the thin polymer films can be replaced.
For a successful investigation of the microbial and the process engineering challenges a cooperation of Technical University of Kaiserslautern (chair of seperation science and technology) and University of Koblenz-Landau (working goup microbiology) was established.
The aim of this work was design engineering and production of a reactor for investigation of biofouling taking place on thin polymeric films and stainless steel. Furthermore, an experimental design has to be established. Several requirements have to be applied for these tasks. Therefore, a real heat exchanger is downscaled, so the process parameters are at least comparable. There are many commercial flow cell kits available. Reducing the costs by selfassembling increased the number of samples, so there is a basis for statistic analysis. In addition, fast and minimal invasive online-in-situ microscopy and Raman spectroscopy can be performed. By creating laminary flow and using a weir we implemented homogenous inflow to the reactors. Reproduceable data on biomass and cell number were created.
The assessment of biomass and cell number is well established for drinking water analysis. Epifluorescense microscopy and gravimetric determination are the basic techniques for this work, too. Differences in cell number and biomass between surface modifications and materials are quantified and statistically analysed.
The wildtype strain Escherichia coli K12 and an inoculum of 500 ml fresh water were used to describe the biofouling of the films. Thereby, we generated data with natural bacterial community in unknown media properties and data with well known media properties, so the technical relevance of the data is given.
Free surface energy and surface roughness are the first attachment hurdles for bacteria. These parameters were measured according to DIN 55660 and DIN EN ISO 4287. The materials science data were correlated with the number of cells and the biomass. This correlation acts as basal link of biofouling as biological induced parameter to the material properties. Material properties for reducing the biofouling can be prospected.
By using Raman spectroscopy as a cutting edge method future investigations could be shortened. If biomass or cell number can be linked with the spectra, new functional materials can be investigated in a short time.