desinfection of biofilms - how to (Mar/03/2009 )

Hypochlorite is - not chloride ion - and that is neffectively neutralized within the biofilm.

Come on pito - you're a smart person. UV for biofilm?? Give me a break.

and please (!) - it's disinfectant.

GeorgeWolff on Mar 8 2009, 03:15 AM said:

Ah yes, indeed, hypochlorite I ment, its hard for me to adapt to the english terms etc.
And yes, disinfectant , my bad.
And yes, as you said: biofilm does neutralise the hypochlorite to a certain amount.
Thats why I was also thinking on using a biodispersant.

About the uv, you are right that it doenst work well for biofilms, however I found an article that speaks of a combination PAA and UV and they got "good" results with it.
Although I do still need to break up the biofilms to get a better result I think.
I was thinking on using a biodispersant to break up the biofilm.

However, I think you make a strong point and it is indeed a lost effort to try uv as there are to many parameters that have an effect on the uv irridation.

But its not my call, I just do what they want me to do.

Understand - you have to do what they say.

Do you have the opportunity to pass on your technical perspective re. likely success? In any case, be real clear with success (here likely failure) criteria.

Are you try it on the construct in question or trying to develop a representative model?

GeorgeWolff on Mar 8 2009, 01:20 PM said:

its a small research unit at a school. They have allready done some minor attempts and now they are going to work a bit more on it. They want to invest some basic techniques. Very small sized test and not really representive to real live situations.

I am not sure if they are going to publish anything or rather keep it internally and maybe towards the future try to do some more bigger scaled research.
I think its mainly a pilot project to see whether there is any future in.

I hear this with regret . Ignoring the existing science is always a mistake.

GeorgeWolff on Mar 9 2009, 02:30 AM said:

True, not much I can do about it.

Besides that, I also wonder how they will generate the biofilm.
It takes time to form a biofilm and they do not seem to concider this possible problem.
I think the best shot will be when I try to break the biofilm and get planktonic cells, however this is not really the object because they really want to disinfect biofilms.. but as you said, this is kinda stupid.

Hallo,

very intersting topic since I have to write a paper on this subject for a schooltask.

I have one question that I have net yet been able to really solve, maybe one of you has an idea.

What with the relation between the turbulence of the water and biofilmformation?
I was thinking that the slower the water the more biofilformation, but I found something on the internet that stated that the higher the turbulence the more likely you would get biofilmformation. Is this possible?

Anyone who might have a scientific paper that describes the relation between what flow (turbulent, laminair) you have and biofilmformation?

thanks

Yes - increased turbulence does slow biofilm development. some recirculating systems rely on that alone. Look up "Reynolds number."

GeorgeWolff on Apr 7 2009, 01:21 AM said:

You mean you need to increase the turbulence once in a while then?

And how do you link this with the saying that the stronger the turbulence the more biofilm you get?
I saw an article that spoke about this: the higher the turbulence the stronger and more biofilms you get? Or did I misread it?
(I havent got the article anymore )

No - more turbulence - less biofilm. It has to be constant.