Interactions of Toxic Trace Metals with Multi-Component Biofilms: A Mechanistic Approach

有毒微量金属与多组分生物膜的相互作用：一种机制方法。这是美国国家科学基金会86-17408号拨款下对镉和铅在水溶液中对被生物膜覆盖的固体表面的吸附行为的资助。结果导致了基于机械的结构化模型的发展，该模型可用于在恒定pH和离子强度条件下预测这些金属在由单一细菌物种，其胞外聚合物和固体表面组成的实验系统中的行为。更新项目的目标是通过引入铁作为竞争性痕量金属来扩展这种方法，以提供更类似于自然环境中发现的条件的复杂性，在自然环境中，金属在固体表面的吸附具有环境意义。​预计这项研究的结果将有助于了解影响固体表面生物膜形成的因素，包括用于处理废水的固定膜、生物膜反应器。在该项目中获得的见解预计将导致污水处理固定膜工艺的工程设计的改进，并可能应用于比现在更好地理解自然地表水和地下地层沉积物中生物膜形成的机制影响地下水污染物的运动。

Interactions of Toxic Trace Metals With Multi-Component Biofilms: A Mechanistic Approach. This is a renewal award for support of research conducted under NSF Grant No. 86-17408 on the adsorption behavior of cadmium and lead in water solution to solid surfaces that had become coated with biofilms. Results led to development of a mechanistically-based, structured model that can be used to predict the behavior of these metals in an experimental system consisting of a single bacterial species, its extracellular polymer and a solid surface under conditions of constant pH and ionic strength. The objective of the renewal project is to extend this approach by introduction of ferric iron as a competing trace metal to provide a degree of complexity more analagous to conditions found in the natural environment where adsorption of metals to solid surfaces is of environmental significance. Results of this research are expected to develop knowledge of factors that influence the formation of biofilms on solid surfaces including fixed-film, biofilm reactors that are used for the treatment of wastewaters. Insights obtained during this project are expected to lead to improvements in the engineering design of fixed-film processes for wastewater treatment and may be applied to obtaining a better understanding than now exists of mechanisms for biofilm formation in sediments underlying natural surface waters and in subsurface formations that affect the movement of groundwater pollutants.