New SFB 1313 publication, published in the scientific journal Advances in Water Resources. The work has been developed in the context of the SFB 1313 research projects C04 and C01. It was a cooperation with the Montana State University (USA), one of SFB 1313's external partners.
"Intermittent flow paths in biofilms grown in a microfluidic channel"
Authors
Abstract
Biofilms exposed to flow experience shear stress, which leads to a competitive interaction between the growth and development of a biofilm and shearing. In this study, Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilm was grown in a microfluidic channel and exposed to forced flow of an aqueous solution of variable velocity. It can be observed that under certain conditions preferential flow paths form with a dynamic, but quasi-steady state interaction of growth, detachment, and re-attachment. We find that the regimes for preferential flow path development are determined by nutrient availability and the ratio of shear stress versus the biofilm’s ability to resist shear forces. The intermittent regime of flow paths is mainly driven by the supply with nutrients, which we confirm by comparison with a numerical model based on coarse-grained molecular dynamics and Lattice Boltzmann hydrodynamics.