Research
ENVIRONMENTALLY BENIGN CONTROL OF BIOFOULING
Novel Bacteria Fouling Control
Team
Jun Lou, Ph.D., Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials
Science, Rice University
Qilin Li, Ph.D., Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice
University
Dr. Jun Lou
|
 Dr. Qilin Li |
Project BackgroundThe team's objective is to develop a novel bacteria fouling control
strategy using surface topographic patterning. This method does not
involve use of biocides nor does it require external energy input.
Therefore, it has the advantage of being environmentally benign compared
to other control strategies.
The scale and magnitude of the environmental and economical
implication of biofouling is tremendous. Its impact ranges from fouling
of water filtration membranes and naval ship hulls, interference with
underwater sensors, clogging and corrosion of water distribution
pipelines, transport of water-borne pathogen s, to contamination of food
processing equipment, medical devices and biomedical implants. The
crucial step to prevent biofouling is hindrance of the initial microbial
attachment to the surface and inhibition of further biological growth.
Currently, the most common strategy to control biofouling is through the
application of coating materials that slowly release biocides, which
introduce potential environmental hazards. Examples of highly
fouling-resistant surfaces in the biological world such as shark skin
and lotus leaf, both with micro- and/or nano-scale textured surfaces,
suggest that surface topography may be an important factor in
controlling biofouling. In addition, recent studies on both microbial
(e.g., algal spores) and mammalian cells show that ordered micro- and
nano-scale surface topographic structures significantly reduce cell
adhesion. These results and the natural fouling-resistant surfaces
suggest that manipulation of material surface topography may be a
potential approach to biofouling control.
In this project, the team will first design and fabricate
well-defined hierarchical topographic structures at two length scales
and on different substrates to mimic natural fouling-resistant plant
leaves. They will then investigate the role of micro- and nano-scale
surface patterns in adhesion of biological and non-biological particles,
and to elucidate the effect of scale. Short-term and long-term adhesion
experiments will be conducted with non-biological particles
(polystyrene latex and carboxyl modified latex), model biological
particles (latex coated with extracellular polymeric substances (EPS))
and biological particles (bacteria, diatom) using the control surface,
the lotus leaf and the engineered surface patterns.
The team anticipates developing a series of hierarchical surface
patterns using different materials that have the potential to control
fouling by microorganisms of various sizes in the aqueous environment.
They also expect to establish preliminary guidelines in design of
environmentally benign surface topographic patterns for biofouling
control for environmental engineering, navy and biomedical
applications.
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