Impact of biofilm‐induced heterogeneities on solute transport in porous media. Issue 11 (26th November 2014) - Kone, T.
Abstract In subsurface systems, biofilm may degrade organic or organometallic pollutants contributing to natural attenuation and soil bioremediation techniques. This increase of microbial activity leads to change the hydrodynamic properties of aquifers. The purpose of this work was to investigate the influence of biofilm‐induced heterogeneities on solute transport in porous media and more specifically on dispersivity. We pursued this goal by (i) monitoring both spatial concentration fields and solute breakthrough curves from conservative tracer experiments in a biofilm‐supporting porous medium, (ii) characterizing in situ the changes in biovolume and visualizing the dynamics of the biological material at the mesoscale. A series of experiments was carried out in a flow cell system (60 cm3) with a silica sand (Φ = 50–70 mesh) as solid carrier and Shewanella oneidensis MR‐1 as bacterial strain. Biofilm growth was monitored by image acquisition with a digital camera. The biofilm volume fraction was estimated through tracer experiments with the Blue Dextran macromolecule as in size‐exclusion chromatography, leading to a fair picture of the biocolonization within the flow cell. Biofilm growth was achieved in the whole flow cell in 29 days and up to 50% of void space volume was plugged. The influence of biofilm maturation on porous medium transport properties was evaluated from tracer experiments using Brilliant Blue FCF. An experimental correlation was found between effective (i.e., nonbiocolonized) porosity and biofilm‐affected dispersivity. Comparison with values given by the theoretical model of Taylor and Jaffé (1990b) yields a fair agreement.