: New ecolabels for textile products and tighter restrictions on wastewater discharges are forcing textile wet processors to reuse process water and chemicals. This challenge has prompted intensive research in new advanced treatment technologies, some of which currently making their way to full-scale installations. These comprise polishing treatments such as Ðltration, chemical oxidation and specialized Ñocculation techniques and pre-treatment steps including anaerobic digestion, Ðxed-Ðlm bioreactors, FentonÏs reagent oxidation, electrolysis, or foam Ñotation. Though several of these new technologies are promising in terms of cost and performance, they all su †er limitations which require further research and/or need broader validation. A segment of the research deals with the separate handling of speciÐc sub-streams such as dyebath effluents to which membrane Ðltration is sometimes applied. The main limitation of this approach is the treatment of the concentrate stream. The spectrum of available technologies may, in the future, be further broadened to include oxidation, specialized bio-sorptive processes, solvent extracfungi/H 2 O 2 -driven tion, or photocatalysis.1998 SCI (

The biological clogging of natural porous media, often in conjunction with physical or chemical clogging, is encountered under a wide range of conditions. Wastewater disposal, artificial groundwater recharge, in situ bioremediation of contaminated aquifers, construction of water reservoirs, or secondary oil recovery are all affected by this process. The present review provides an overview of the techniques that are used to study clogging in the laboratory, or to monitor it in field applications. After a brief survey of the clogging patterns most commonly observed in practice, and of a number of physical and chemical causes of clogging, the various mechanisms by which microorganisms clog soils and other natural porous media are analyzed in detail. A critical assessment is also provided of the few mathematical models that have been developed in the last few years to describe the biological clogging process. The overall conclusion of the review is that although information is available on several aspects of the biological clogging of natural porous media, further research is required to predict its extent quantitatively in a given situation. This is particularly true in cases that involve complicating factors such as predation or competition among organisms.

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Bacterial reductions of the saturated hydraulic conductivity, Ks, of natural porous media have been traditionally associated with the development of anaerobic conditions and the production of large amounts of extracellular polymers by the bacteria. Various researchers have also reported that these reductions occur predominantly at or very near the surfaces of injection of nutrients within the porous media. Attempts to describe mathematically the resulting clogging process have, in the past, been based on the assumption that bacterial cells form impermeable biofilms uniformly covering pore walls. A series of percolation experiments was carried out to determine the extent to which an obligately aerobic bacterial strain, Arthrobacter sp., is able to clog permeameters filled with fine sand. A second objective was to elucidate the mechanism(s) responsible for this process. The experimental results indicate that strictly aerobic bacteria are able to reduce Ks by up to four orders of magnitude. Rapid reductions in Ks are associated with the formation of a bacterial mat at the inlet boundary of the sand columns. When the colonization of the inlet is prevented, clogging proceeds within the bulk of the sand at a noticeably slower rate. Under O2‐ or glucose‐limited growth conditions, this decrease in Ks within the sand does not appear on scanning electron micrographs to be caused by exopolymers, which are entirely absent, but rather seems to be due to the presence of large aggregates of cells that form local plugs within the pores. Under conditions of severe N limitation, the same mechanism seems to be largely responsible for the observed clogging, in spite of the production by the cells of extracellular substances, visible under light microscopy and on scanning electron micrographs. In all cases, the coverage of the solid surfaces by the bacterial cells is sparse and heterogeneous, contrary to the basic tenets of the biofilm model.

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Previous studies have shown that various microorganisms can enhance the dissolution of silicate minerals at low (<5) or high (>8) pH. However, it was not known if they can have an effect at near-neutral pH. Almost half of 17 isolates examined in this study stimulated bytownite dissolution at near-neutral pH while in a resting state in buffered glucose. Most of the isolates found to stimulate dissolution also oxidized glucose to gluconic acid. More detailed analysis with one of these isolates suggested that this partial oxidation was the predominant, if not sole, mechanism of enhanced dissolution. Enhanced dissolution did not require direct contact between the dissolving mineral and the bacteria. Gluconate-promoted dissolution was also observed with other silicate minerals such as albite, quartz, and kaolinite.

Bacterial reductions of the saturated hydraulic conductivity of natural porous media appear to be caused by a wide range of mechanisms, few of which have been carefully studied. Nevertheless, a number of mathematical models have been developed in recent years to describe the microbial clogging process, based on the assumption that bacterial cells form impermeable biofilms uniformly covering pore walls. In the present study, two independent sets of experimental data available in the literature are used to test the existing bioclogging models. To broaden the scope of the assessment, an additional model, initially developed to describe the deep filtration of suspended colloids, is also included in the comparisons. Analysis of the experimental data reveals a clear relationship between the texture of a porous medium and the ability of a given level of biomass to reduce its saturated hydraulic conductivity; at equal biomass, clogging is much more pronounced in fine-textured materials than in coarse-textured ones. In addition, the results of the model comparisons suggest that none of the existing models can predict satisfactorily the saturated hydraulic conductivity reductions observed in fine sands, whereas they fare somewhat better in coarser materials. It is argued that this inadequacy of existing models is due to the continuous biofilm assumption on which they are founded. Indeed, a simplistic model that assumes the biomass to be distributed as plugs instead of as continuous biofilms produces quantitatively much improved predictions of the saturated hydraulic conductivity reductions. Reference is made to the consequences of this observation in terms of future research.

Columns were packed with clean quartz sand, sterilized, and inoculated with different strains of bacteria, which multiplied within the sand at the expense of a continuous supply of fresh nutrient medium. The saturated hydraulic conductivity (HC,at) of the sand was monitored over time. Among the four bacterial strains tested, one formed a capsule, one produced slime layers, and two did not produce any detectable exopolymers. The last two strains were nonmucoid variants of the first two. Only one strain, the slime producer, had a large impact on the HCSat. The production of exopolymers had no effect on either cell multiplication within or movement through the sand columns. Therefore, the HCsat reduction observed with the slime producer was tentatively attributed to the obstruction of flow channels with slime. Compared with the results with Arthrobacter sp. strain AK19 used in a previous study, there was a 100-fold increase in detachment from the solid substratum and movement through the sand of the strains used in this study. All strains induced severe clogging when they colonized the inlet chamber of the columns. Under these conditions, the inlet end was covered by a confluent mat with an extremely low HCsat.on July 5, 2020 by guest http://aem.asm.org/ Downloaded from