Author(s)

R.H. Dillon, L. Fauci & D. Meng

Abstract

A microscale model of biofilm formation in porous media R.H. Dillon*, L. Fauci** & D. Meng** ^Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics E-mail: dillon@math.wsu.edu **Department of Mathematics Abstract In this paper we describe a microscale model of biofilm formation in an ideal- ized two-dimensional porous media. This model includes the flow, transport and bioreaction of nutrients, electron acceptors and inicrobial cells in a sat- urated granular porous media. Bacterial cells are predominantly attached to the soil particles but may be also found in the fluid phase. Attachment of bacterial cells to the soil matrix and growth of bacteria can change the local permeability. The coupling of mass transport and bioreaction results in spatial gradients of nutrients and electron acceptor concentrations. We describe a numerical method for the microscale model, show results of a convergence study and present simulations of the model system. 1 Introduction Microbial processe

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