Fouling Behavior of Mycobacterium

Microbial fouling is an ongoing issue in membrane science. Typically, hydrophilic components are added to the membrane surface in order to reduce the degree of fouling.  To determine if this method is effective, we are actively testing the effect of surface hydrophobicity on membrane fouling using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) . QCM is highly sensitive to variations in the mass of a substrate, making it an ideal tool for the quantitative study of fouling behavior. We consider four surfaces with a water contact angle range of zero to ninety degrees, enabling us to study the full spectrum of surface hydrophobicity. We then flow cultures of Escherichia coli or Mycobacterium mucogenicum over the surface of the crystal, and monitor the bacterial adhesion in real time using our QCM apparatus. We have determined that there are potentially key differences in the adhesion character of these two strains, suggesting that microbial fouling may not be readily controlled through a simple variation of surface hydrophobicity.