Mechanism of bacterial attachment on textile fibrous media

Abstract

A mechanism to remove the Pseudomonas bacteria from contaminated water by using textile fibrous media has been proposed in this article. The attachment of Pseudomonas bacteria on different media material was studied in laboratory column experiment. Two types of textiles media made of polyester and nylon fibers were selected for the experiment. The experimental design included the various level of salt concentration of calcium chloride (i.e. 1 mM, 50 mM, 100 mM, and 150 mM). The maximum removal efficiency of nylon fibrous media is 77% and that of polyester is 58.33% for the same ionic strength. The colloidal filtration and Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) theory was used to investigate the effect of media material on bacteria attachment at various level of salt concentration. Bacteria attachment on nylon fibrous media is found to be greater as compared to the polyester fibrous media. The DLVO profile of the bacteria attachment on polyester shows the existence of a high energy barrier (710${ K}_{\mathrm{b}}T$) as compared to the nylon fibrous media (398$K_{\mathrm{b}}T$) at an ionic strength 1 mM. These high energy barriers resist the deposition of the bacteria in the primary minimum resulted in lower removal efficiency of the polyester media material.

Keywords:

• Bacterial attachment
• textile fibers
• DLVO theory
• transport mechanism
• attachment mechanism
• collision efficiency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.