Simulation of thick biofilm growth at the microscale

Abstract

The use of thick biofilms in porous media to form biobarriers is a new way of controlling pollution in aquifers. Biofilm growth at the pore scale needs to be understood in order to determine how to best construct biobarriers to block the flow of pollutants into sources of water. The physical, chemical and biological processes involved are very complicated. It is necessary to solve the Navier–Stokes equations for the flow, transport equations for the movement of nutrients and pollutants and growth and transport-reaction equations for the biofilm. Since the growth of the biofilm changes the physical characteristics of the medium, all the processes are interrelated. In this paper we concentrate on the biofilm growth equations and in how to deal with the coupling of the equations.