Biofilm remediation by extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) modification

With the help of the Baker Koob endowment this project was able to investigate the novel application of chemical modifiers on mature biofilms as a new potential method for its removal. The major challenge that this project initially faced was the designing an experimental procedure for consistent biofilm production in order for a comparison treatment across sampling surfaces and follow up experiments. However, the consistency was hard to determine until a reliable sampling method was established. Fortunately, after interacting with industry leaders in biofilm remediation technics a methodology was discovered that was recently approved by the Environmental Protection Agency as a reliable way to test for the ability of novel agents as biofilm removers. With the help of the endowment the equipment for the experimental set up was purchased and the chemical modifier was tested. After four experimental runs of the EPA approved methods a trend is forming suggesting that the chemical modification of interest does behave as a biofilm remover. Although it is hard to be sure of its properties at this point in the process, our modifier, if effective, could greatly benefit many industries. From this point on more experimental trials will need to be ran to further determine if the trending properties of the modifier are what we think they are. In conclusion, and with high hopes that the experiment maintains a support for the chemical modifier to be a viable biofilm remediation agent, experimental runs will end in February, with results analyzed and written by the end of April