Engineering Commons^™

When Nanoparticles Meet Biofilms — Interactions Guiding The Environmental Fate And Accumulation Of Nanoparticles, Kaoru Ikuma, Alan W. Decho, Boris L.T. Lau

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publication Series

Bacteria are essential components of all natural and many engineered systems. The most active fractions of bacteria are now recognized to occur as biofilms, where cells are attached and surrounded by a secreted matrix of “sticky” extracellular polymeric substances. Recent investigations have established that significant accumulation of nanoparticles (NPs) occurs in aquatic biofilms. These studies point to the emerging roles of biofilms for influencing partitioning and possibly transformations of NPs in both natural and engineered systems. While attached biofilms are efficient “sponges” for NPs, efforts to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms guiding interactions between NPs and biofilms have just begun. …