Biofilms and beyond: a comprehensive review of the impact of Sulphate Reducing Bacteria on steel corrosion

Figures & data

Table 1. Various measurement techniques applied to study MIC due to Sulphate reducing bacteria.

Sl. No	Topic	Method of corrosion analysis	Reference
1	Anaerobic phases of marine immersion corrosion	Corrosion rate measurement, Pit depth	(Melchers and Wells 2006)
2	Mitigation of SRB induced corrosion	Electrochemical measurements	(Yang et al. 2023)
3	Effect of SRB on galvanic corrosion behavior on steel	Electrochemical measurements	(Wan et al. 2023)
4	Corrosion of aluminum anode alloys in SRB containing sea mud	Rate of corrosion, Pit depth	(Liu et al. 2014)
5	Comparison of flow regimes on biocorrosion of steel pipe weldments	Most probable number (MPN) technique, Statistical analysis, and pitting investigation according to the American Society for Testing and Materials Standard G-46/94	(Liduino et al. 2019)
6	Study of microbiologically induced corrosion of 5052 aluminum alloy	Open Circuit Potential (OCP). SEM, polarization, and EIS	(de Andrade et al. 2020)
7	Carbon steel biocorrosion at 80 °C by a thermophilic sulfate-reducing archaeon biofilm	Weight loss measurements, electrochemical analysis- Linear polarization resistance	(Jia, Yang, et al. 2018)
8	Studies on the soils biocorrosion activity	Biometric analysis, Soils microbiological testing	(Chesnokova et al. 2015)
9	Analysis of corrosion defects on oil pipeline surface	Scanning electron microscopy, raster electron microscopy, Biometric analysis toolkits -STATISTICA-6 and BIOSTATISTICS	(Chesnokova et al. 2016)
10	Effects of biogenic H2S on the microbiologically influenced corrosion of C1018 carbon steel	Scanning electron microscope (SEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), most probable number (MPN) method	(Jia, Tan, et al. 2018a)
11	Microbiologically Induced Corrosion of X80 Pipeline Steel in a Near-Neutral pH Soil Solution	Electrochemical techniques and microbiological tests	(Wu et al. 2015)

Figure 1. The original five-step model of biofilm development (Aiyer et al. 2018).

Figure 2. Schematic representation of dissimilatory sulfate reduction in SRB (Tran et al. 2021).

Figure 3. Illustration of the cathodic depolarization mechanism of SRB activity (Lv & Du 2018).

Figure 4. Schematic representation of DET and MET in EET [Gu et al. 2021].

Figure 5. Schematic illustration of BCSR microbially influenced corrosion mechanism (Gu et al. 2019).

Table 2. SRB corrosion in various materials and medium and their findings.

Medium	Material	Comments	Ref
Simulated sewage	concrete	The biological sulfuric acid produced by microbial metabolism corrodes concrete to produce gypsum and other corrosion products.	(Wang et al., 2022)
Artificial seawater	Ti-6Al-4V	The evolution of corrosion pits and the maximum pit depth enhanced with the increase of electron shuttle concentration	(Xu et al., 2023)
Culture medium	Stainless steel	Exogenous flavins promote iron-to-microbe electron transfer, accelerating microbiological corrosion	(Jin et al., 2024)
Seawater	09CrCuSb low alloy steel (LAS) and Q235 carbon steel (CS)	Fewer sessile cells on the steel surface led to a lower extracellular electron transfer (EET) rate so less corrosion occurred. The combined effect of alloying elements on grain refinement and passive film formation also improved the anti-corrosion property of the steel.	(Lu et al., 2023)
Simulated shale gas production environment	X65 pipeline steel	The synergistic effect of sand deposit and sulfate-reducing bacteria was investigated. the formation of biofilm altered the protectiveness of the surface mixed layer	(Liao et al., 2023)
Seawater	Concrete	Abundant DO (∼4 mg/L) would enhance the compressive strength of bacterial corroded concrete in the early stage by generating products of gypsum and ettringite. While the excessive products destruct the inner structure of concrete and restrain the compressive strength.	(Sun et al., 2023)
Soil solution	X80 steel	Uniform corrosion dominated the corrosion process of the control coupon, while the local corrosion sensibility of the corrosion products (CP) and microbial film (MF) coupons increased in the same environment.	(Zhou et al., 2021)
Artificial Marine Environments	Ni-P-Ag Coatings	Ni-P-Ag could not inhibit the growth of SRB, which were still able to proliferate within a short period	(Yang et al., 2020)
Groundwater	AISI304 and 316	Higher corrosion rates of steel coupons were detected in the higher alloyed stainless-steel grade 316 compared to the lower alloyed grade 304. Pitting was the main corrosion form.	(Rajala et al., 2022)

Table 3. Different types of corrosion caused by various bacteria on steel.

Metal	Bacteria/medium	Type of Corrosion	Reference
X52 carbon steel and 2205 stainless steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria	Galvanic corrosion	(Wan et al. 2023)
X80 steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria in seawater	MIC	(Liu et al. 2022)
X70 pipeline steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria	Stress corrosion	(Sun et al. 2023)
X70 steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria/marine mud environment	Stress corrosion	(Xie et al. 2023)
X80 steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria/injected water simulation solution	Corrosion	(Zhao et al. 2022)
Carbon steel	Sulfate reducing bacteria/Test medium	Under-deposit corrosion (UDC)	(Yang et al. 2022)
X80 pipeline steel	Sulfate reducing bacteria	Corrosion	(Wei et al. 2021)
Q235 carbon steel	Sulfate reducing bacteria/	Corrosion	(Li et al. 2022)
X80 steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria/coastal saline soil	Corrosion	(Qin et al. 2021)
X80 pipeline steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria	Stress corrosion cracking	(Xie et al. 2021)
X80 carbon steel	sulfate reducing bacteria/ simulated seawater	Crevice corrosion	(Zhang et al. 2021)
980 high-strength steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria/seawater	Stress corrosion cracking	(Lv et al. 2021)
2205 duplex stainless steel	Sulfate-reducing bacteria	Stress-assisted microbiologically influenced corrosion	(Yang et al. 2020)
X100 steel	Sulfate reducing bacteria/sea mud environment	Stress-assisted corrosion behaviour	(M. Wu et al. 2021)

Figure 6. Evolution of various model types (Wang et al. 2023).

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