75th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 20, 2022 — November 22, 2022)

P0026: Buckling of biofilm-coated oil droplets

• View Larger
• Download Original

Authors

• George Kapellos, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Thu Ha Nguyen, University of Sydney
• Maxwell Nagarajan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Virginia Spanoudaki, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Christakis Paraskeva, University of Patras
• Patrick Doyle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2022.GFM.P0026

The physical and biochemical interactions between marine bacteria and hydrocarbon droplets play a pivotal role in the fate and transport of crude oil in the sea. Unraveling these interactions across multiple spatial and temporal scales would enable the development of efficient methods for combating marine oil spills. To this end, we investigate how marine bacteria colonize and degrade individual hydrocarbon droplets. Typically, the bacteria cover the entire droplet with a biofilm, in which high numbers of bacterial cells are held together by a matrix of biopolymers. This poster presents high-resolution images of biofilm-coated droplets at the late stages of their lifetime [Project H2020 MSCA 741799].