Browsing by Author "Redden, George D."

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Construction of two ureolytic model organisms for the study of microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation
(2013-09) Connolly, James M.; Kaufman, M.; Rothman, Adam P.; Gupta, R.; Redden, George D.; Schuster, M.; Colwell, F.; Gerlach, Robin
Two bacterial strains, Pseudomonas aeruginosa MJK1 and Escherichia coli MJK2, were constructed that both express green fluorescent protein (GFP) and carry out ureolysis. These two novel model organisms are useful for studying bacterial carbonate mineral precipitation processes and specifically ureolysis-driven microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP). The strains were constructed by adding plasmid-borne urease genes (ureABC, ureD and ureFG) to the strains P. aeruginosa AH298 and E. coli AF504gfp, both of which already carried unstable GFP derivatives. The ureolytic activities of the two new strains were compared to the common, non-GFP expressing, model organism Sporosarcina pasteurii in planktonic culture under standard laboratory growth conditions. It was found that the engineered strains exhibited a lower ureolysis rate per cell but were able to grow faster and to a higher population density under the conditions of this study. Both engineered strains were successfully grown as biofilms in capillary flow cell reactors and ureolysis induced calcium carbonate mineral precipitation was observed microscopically. The undisturbed spatiotemporal distribution of biomass and calcium carbonate minerals were successfully resolved in 3D using confocal laser scanning microscopy. Observations of this nature were not possible previously because no obligate urease producer that expresses GFP had been available. Future observations using these organisms will allow researchers to further improve engineered application of MICP as well as study natural mineralization processes in model systems.
Impact of Mineral Precipitation on Flow and Mixing in Porous Media Determined by Microcomputed Tomography and MRI
(2017-02) Bray, Joshua A.; Lauchnor, Ellen G.; Redden, George D.; Fujita, Yoshiko; Codd, Sarah L.; Seymour, Joseph D.
Precipitation reactions influence transport properties in porous media and can be coupled to advective and dispersive transport. For example, in subsurface environments, mixing of groundwater and injected solutions can induce mineral supersaturation of constituents and drive precipitation reactions. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and microcomputed tomography (μ-CT) were employed as complementary techniques to evaluate advection, dispersion, and formation of precipitate in a 3D porous media flow cell. Two parallel fluids were flowed concentrically through packed glass beads under two relative flow rates with Na2CO3 and CaCl2 in the inner and outer fluids, respectively. CaCO3 became supersaturated and formed a precipitate at the mixing interface between the two solutions. Spatial maps of changing local velocity fields and dispersion in the flow cell were generated from MRI, while high resolution μ-CT imaging visualized the precipitate formed in the porous media. Formation of a precipitate minimized dispersive and advective transport between the two fluids and the shape of the precipitation front was influenced by the relative flow rates. This work demonstrates that the combined use of MRI and μ-CT can be highly complementary in the study of reactive transport processes in porous media.