Microbiologically influenced corrosion of maritime platforms

已经进行了大量的研究来确定金属系统上形成的破坏性生物膜的影响，其中大部分是在石油和天然气以及能源工业中。尽管近年来人们对检测、监测和防止腐蚀的有效方法越来越感兴趣，但仍然缺乏对与MIC相关的微生物群落的了解。因此，参与反应的细菌聚生体的身份并不完全清楚，这可能会阻碍针对此类问题制定有针对性的缓解策略。为了能够为海洋平台的防腐蚀战略的未来做出贡献，这个博士学位。该计划将使用非培养技术复制在现场确定的多种微生物群落，以了解可能在BAE系统的海上平台上形成有问题的生物膜的细菌财团。拟议的工作将分为三个阶段，每个阶段的相关目标如下：表征在选定的码头发现的腐蚀性生物膜，BAE系统用于海上平台储存和维护，识别和分离参与生物膜活动的关键微生物构建合成实验室联合体，以复制从海上平台识别的不同群落使用合成群落来定义不同细菌在这些生物膜中的作用，使人们能够了解如何控制与它们相关的微生物影响的腐蚀（MIC）在实验室中研究单个微生物的技术已经得到了很好的建立，技术的进步现在可以在DNA水平上对复杂的多微生物系统进行独立培养的表征，消除了哪些生物最容易在实验室中孤立生长的偏见。最近，通过结合这两种技术，在微生物学的几个领域取得了进展，在实验室中构建人工聚生体，可用于探测单个成员的作用，并观察聚生体的组成如何随时间和环境压力而变化。将从感兴趣的位点采集生物膜样本，并制备总DNA并用于条形码16 S rRNA基因特异性PCR，然后进行下一代DNA测序，以确定生物膜中的细菌物种组成。该信息将用于通知富集实验，以从生物膜样品中分离关键微生物组的代表。只要有可能，分离株将对应于原始生物膜中的主要参与者，尽管即使这是不可能的（因为环境中复杂的多微生物群落中的优势生物体通常不容易在实验室培养基中生长），也将获得关键功能组的代表。这将允许在实验室中用人工构建的微生物群落进行后续实验，这将允许在流动电池系统中以各种组合研究各种腐蚀促进和腐蚀抑制微生物的作用，这将允许通过电化学方法进行观察。这些结果有望为未来的防腐蚀策略提供信息，包括使用非生物杀灭剂来改变生物膜行为和开发含有关键防腐/杀菌微生物的功能涂层。

A considerable amount of research has been performed to determine the effects of destructive biofilms formed on metallic systems, most of which have been in the oil and gas, and energy industries. Although in more recent years there has been an increased interest in an effective means of detecting, monitoring, and preventing corrosion an understanding of the microbial community consortium in association with MIC is still lacking. Consequently, the identities of the bacterial consortia involved in the reactions are not fully known, which can impede the formulation of a targeted mitigation strategy for such issues. To be able to contribute to the future of anti-corrosion strategies of maritime platforms this Ph.D. programme will replicate the polymicrobial community identified at field sites, using culture-independent techniques, to develop an understanding of the bacterial consortia which could form problematic biofilms on maritime platforms for BAE systems. The proposed work will be separated into three stages and the objectives associated with each of these are as follows: Characterise corrosive biofilms found at selected docks, used by BAE systems for maritime platform storage and maintenance, to identify and isolate key microorganisms involved in biofilm activities Construct synthetic laboratory consortia to replicate the different communities identified from maritime platforms Use the synthetic community to define the roles of different bacteria in those biofilms enabling an understanding of how microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) associated with them might be controlled Techniques for studying individual microorganisms in the laboratory are well established and advancements in technologies now enable culture-independent characterisation of complex polymicrobial systems at the DNA level, removing the bias of which organisms are easiest to grow in isolation in the laboratory. More recently, progress has been made in several areas of microbiology by combining these two techniques, to construct artificial consortia in the laboratory that can be used to probe the roles of the individual members and to observe how the composition of the consortium changes with time and environmental stresses. Biofilm samples will be taken from sites of interest and total DNA will be prepared and used for barcoded 16S rRNA gene-specific PCR followed by next generation DNA sequencing to determine the bacterial species composition in the biofilms. This information will be used to inform enrichment experiments to isolate representatives of key groups of microorganisms from the biofilm samples. Wherever possible the isolates will correspond to the major players in the original biofilms, though even where this is not possible (because dominant organisms in complex polymicrobial communities in the environment often do not grow easily in laboratory media), representatives of the key functional groups will be obtained. This will allow subsequent experiments with artificially constructed communities of microorganisms in the laboratory, which will allow the effects of various corrosion promoting and corrosion inhibiting microorganisms to be studied in various combinations in a flow cell system that will allow observations to be made by electrochemical methods. The results are expected to inform future anti-corrosion strategies, including use of non-biocidal agents to modify biofilm behaviour and development of functional coatings containing key anticorrosion/ antifouling microorganisms.