Overview

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