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Anticorrosive Influence of Acetobacter aceti Biofilms on Carbon Steel

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Abstract

Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) of carbon steel infrastructure is an emerging environmental and cost issue for the ethanol fuel industry, yet its examination lacks rigorous quantification of microbiological parameters that could reveal effective intervention strategies. To quantitatively characterize the effect of cell concentration on MIC of carbon steel, numbers of bacteria exposed to test coupons were systematically controlled to span four orders of magnitude throughout a seven-day test. The bacterium studied, Acetobacter aceti, has been found in ethanol fuel environments and can convert ethanol to the corrosive species acetic acid. A. aceti biofilms formed during the test were qualitatively evaluated with fluorescence microscopy, and steel surfaces were characterized by scanning electron microscopy. During exposure, biofilms developed more quickly, and test reactor pH decreased at a faster rate, when cell exposure was higher. Resulting corrosion rates, however, were inversely proportional to cell exposure, indicating that A. aceti biofilms are able to protect carbon steel surfaces from corrosion. This is a novel demonstration of corrosion inhibition by an acid-producing bacterium that occurs naturally in corrosive environments. Mitigation techniques for MIC that harness the power of microbial communities have the potential to be scalable, inexpensive, and green solutions to industrial problems.

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Notes

  1. Commercial equipment, instruments, or materials are identified only in order to adequately specify certain procedures. In no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does, it imply that the products identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Jeff Sowards and Elisabeth Mansfield for establishing support for this work at NIST, and for helpful planning discussions. In addition, Jeff Sowards, Teresa Kirschling, William Cordell, Emma Schwartz, and Jolene Splett provided assistance in the laboratory or with data analysis. John Spear and Chase Williamson of the Colorado School of Mines provided insights and the A. aceti environmental isolate. The author was funded by a National Research Council Research Associateship at NIST. The University of Colorado Cancer Center DNA Sequencing and Analysis Core is supported by a NIH/NCI Cancer Center Core Support Grant (P30 CA046934).

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  1. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA

    Danielle Cook France

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  1. Danielle Cook France
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Correspondence to Danielle Cook France.

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France, D.C. Anticorrosive Influence of Acetobacter aceti Biofilms on Carbon Steel. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 25, 3580–3589 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-016-2231-0

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