Project Details
Projekt
Understanding the limitations in hydrogenotrophic and/or aerophilic productive biofilms using an MRI-based in-vivo method for the combined quantification of reactant gradients, mass transfer characteristics, and biomass growth
Subject Area
Biological Process Engineering
Term
since 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 559394633
Overall aim of this project is the advancement of MRI as an in-vivo/in-situ technique to study the spatial distribution of biomass density, mass-transfer characteristics as well as substrate (O2 and H2) and pH gradients in hydrogenotrophic and/or aerophilic biofilms and elucidate their influence on reaction rates and biomass growth. To reach the project objectives, a C. necator biofilm will be cultivated in a miniaturized membrane biofilm reactor at constant flow rate and subject to experiments over the course of its growth inside an MRI scanner Firstly, MR-techniques will be performed to characterize the morphology as well as the spatially resolved pH, O2 and H2 concentrations inside the biofilm. To characterize the locally resolved effective diffusion coefficients inside the biofilm these experiments will be followed by a sudden switch from the regular culture medium to a culture medium in which H2O has been replaced by D2O. The flow of the D2O-based culture medium across the surface of the biofilm will lead to a progressing exchange of H2O against D2O, originating from mass transfer inside the biofilm. The resulting time-dependent decrease of the 1H-signal is registered by MR-imaging and used to calculate effective diffusion coefficients and model biofilm growth. Furthermore, we will subject the C. necator biofilms to quorum sensing molecules and use our MRI-method to dynamically study their effect on architecture and productivity in dependence of the local pH and oxygen conditions.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
Subproject of
SPP 2494:
Productive Biofilm Systems
