Disrupting Bacteria Accumulation in Heterogeneous Flow Structures By Chemotaxis

Pietro De Anna1, Yutaka Yawata2, Roman Stocker2 and Ruben Juanes3, (1)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States, (2)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, (3)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Resources Laboratory, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Cambridge, MA, United States
Abstract:
Subsurface bacteria influence the environmental dynamics by controlling the complex bio-geo-chemical reactions driving many important processes (such as geothermal, EOR, or bioremediation). The large-scale consequences result from the microscale interactions occurring within the subsurface heterogeneous host medium. At these microscopic scales, the subsurface environment is very heterogeneous, and both reactants and microbes experience a huge heterogeneity of chemical and physical gradients. Using microscopy and microfluidics we assess the relationship between the heterogeneous flow within a simplified analogous porous medium and the characteristic microorganism resident time and transport properties within the host medium.
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