ENVIRONMENTAL BENIGN MITIGATION OF MICROBIOLOGICALLY INFLUENCED CORROSION (MIC)

The overall program objective is to develop and evaluate environmental benign agents or products that are effective in the prevention, inhibition, and mitigation of microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) in the internal surfaces of metallic natural gas pipelines. The goal is one or more environmental benign, a.k.a. ''green'' products that can be applied to maintain the structure and dependability of the natural gas infrastructure. The technical approach for this quarter has been to evaluate a number of real world pipeline sources for microbial communities or consortia that form biofilms under laboratory simulations of pipelines. The microorganisms will be identified using classical and molecular microbiological tools and there activities under pipeline simulating conditions will be studied. The quarter saw the collection of the first samples from the industry for isolation of the microorganisms, as well as the design and construction of the laboratory-scale pipeline simulators. Methods development for MIC and biofilm microbial isolations and identification, and laboratory design and construction of pipeline simulators were the only activities. At this stage of the study (first quarter), only preliminary results are available.