Jie Wen and Tingyue Gu. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701
Microbiologically induced corrosion (MIC) or biocorrosion is a significant challenge to the oil and gas industry. Biofilms containing bacteria such as sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) can cause pitting attacks on metal surfaces. Green biocides such as tetrakis hydroxymethyl phosphonium sulfate (THPS) and glutaraldehyde are often used to suppress bacterial growth or to remove biofilms. Increased environmental regulations make biocide applications more and more costly. A green biocide enhancer has been found to reduce biocide dosages by several folds in static vials. This work used a glass cell bioreactor equipped with a rotating cylinder electrode (RCE) to evaluate the performances of THPS, a green biocide enhancer, against SRB growth under flow conditions. Unlike a flow-through system, a glass cell system can easily run at a high rotation speed that can be correlated to a high linear velocity in pipe flow. Desulfovibrio desulfuricans subsp. desulfuricans ATCC®14563, a marine strain of SRB, was used in ATCC 1250 medium and also in enriched artificial seawater. The structure of treated and untreated biofilms was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).