Transport of chemotactic bacteria in porous media with residual sources of oil-phase chemical pollutants

related fields
Transport of chemotactic bacteria to sources of chemoattractants within saturated porous media is important in many natural processes: bioremediation of contaminated aquifers, nitrogen fixation by soil Rhizobia at nodules on the roots of leguminous plants, immune system response to controlled drug release in wound healing, and dispersal of pathogenic bacteria in lung mucus.

Suggested reading
  • P. de Anna, A. A. Pahlavan, Y. Yawata, R. Stocker, and R. Juanes, “Chemotaxis under flow disorder shapes microbial dispersion in porous media,” Nat. Phys., pp. 1-27, 2020.
  • T. Bhattacharjee, D. B. Amchin, J. A. Ott, F. Kratz, and S. S. Datta, “Chemotactic Migration of Bacteria in Porous Media,” bioRxiv, no. 1, p. 2020.08.10.244731, 2020.
  • R. M. Ford and R. W. Harvey, “Role of chemotaxis in the transport of bacteria through saturated porous media,” Adv. Water Resour., vol. 30, no. 6–7, pp. 1608–1617, 2006.
  • R. B. Marx and M. D. Aitken, “Bacterial chemotaxis enhances naphthalene degradation in a heterogeneous aqueous system,” Environ. Sci. Technol., vol. 34, no. 16, pp. 3379–3383, 2000.
  • V. Pande, S. C. Pandey, D. Sati, V. Pande, and M. Samant, “Bioremediation: an emerging effective approach towards environment restoration,” Environ. Sustain., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 91–103, 2020.
Useful tools
  • COMSOL Multiphysics software packages use finite element methods to solve partial differential equations that describe the transport processes of microorganisms in porous media.
  • Microfluidic devices enable direct visualization of microorganisms within structured porous media designs.
  • Widefield microscopy is used to observe and track individual microorganisms and the distribution of bacterial populations in microfluidic devices.
References
  • J. S. T. Adadevoh, C. A. Ramsburg, and R. M. Ford, “Chemotaxis Increases the Retention of Bacteria in Porous Media with Residual NAPL Entrapment,” Environ. Sci. Technol., vol. 52, no. 13, pp. 7289–7295, 2018.
  • J. S. T. Adadevoh, S. Ostvar, B. Wood, and R. M. Ford, “Modeling Transport of Chemotactic Bacteria in Granular Media with Distributed Contaminant Sources,” Environ. Sci. Technol., vol. 51, no. 24, pp. 14192–14198, 2017.
  • X. Wang, L. M. Lanning, and R. M. Ford, “Enhanced Retention of Chemotactic Bacteria in a Pore Network with Residual NAPL Contamination,” Environ. Sci. Technol., vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 165–172, 2016.