Research Project 'MICdetect'

Acronym | Duration | Granted by

MICdetect | 01.12.2018 until 30.06.2022 | Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK)

Note: Here the term “microbial corrosion” is used because it was common at the beginning of the project. Nowadays the common term is “microbially influenced corrosion”.

Motivation and Background

Microbial corrosion is caused by geochemically active organisms, which find optimal temperatures in cooling systems. These microorganisms catalyse different redox-reactions, which are responsible for damages in technical systems amounting to several millions per year.

There were no methods available to detect microbial corrosion. Furthermore the prevention of and recovery from microbial corrosion was, according to the state-of-the-art at the beginning of the project, was performed by adding toxic biocides, which - because of their selective impact and build up of resistances - were applied in a trial-and-error procedure. As a consequence, the results were often not satisfying.

Goals

The knowledge regarding microbial corrosion at the beginning of the project should be validated and extended by further investigations.

In-situ diagnostic methods should be developed, which avoid a further input of (air) oxygen during the sampling procedure.

Extended molecular analysis methods for microbial corrosion should be developed, as well as a rapid-test, which answers the question “microbial corrosion: yes or no?” on-site.

Finally alternative measures for prevention and recovery should be developed, among them the so-called bacteriophages. For these bacteriophages analysis methods should be developed.

Research Programme

Central Innovation Programme Medium-sized Businesses

The Project is a Cooperation of these Partners:

TH Wildau, Technical University of Applied Science

Hochschulring 1
15745 Wildau
Germany

www.th-wildau.de

Fachhochschule Westküste

Fritz-Thiedemann-Ring 20
25746 Heide
Germany

www.fh-westkueste.de/ite/

AMODIA Bioservice GmbH

Rebenring 31
38106 Braunschweig
Germany

www.amodia.de

BIOMES NGS GmbH

Freiheitstraße 124
15745 Wildau
Germany

biomes.world/en/

I.T.A. UG

Boderitzer Str. 76
01217 Dresden
Germany

ita-ug.de

Z&H Wassertechnik GmbH

Alfred-Friedrich-Straße 28
66606 St. Wendel
Germany

www.zundh-wassertechnik.de/

The project is structured in six sub-projects, which are performed and lead by the developing SME or the researching university of applied science respectively:

Sub-project 1 (FH Westküste, TH Wildau, I.T.A. UG)

Specification, Basic Validation and Testing

Sub-project 2 (AMODIA Bioservice GmbH, TH Wildau)

Development of Rapid-Tests

Sub-project 3 (BIOMES NGS GmbH)

Development of Bioinformatic Tools for Biome Analysis

Sub-project 4 (I.T.A. UG)

In-situ Analysis Methods (I.T.A. UG)

Sub-project 5 (Z&H Wassertechnik)

Sustainable Methods for Prevention of Microbial Corrosion

Sub-project 6 (TH Wildau)

Analysis and Use of Bacteriophages

Project Results for AMODIA

• From this project several analyses were developed, which are now offered as commercial services:

  • ‘Molecular Total Microbial Count’ (mTMC) in Industrial Water
  • Molecular Profiling Analysis of Industrial Water
  • Molecular Quantification of Sulfate Reducing Bacteria (SRB) in Industrial Water
  • Molecular Risk Assessment for MIC

• The risk assessment combines the molecular-biological analyses with know-how about MIC. The established method allows - like a traffic light - to distinguish the states “okay” (green), “attention” (yellow) and “critical” (red).