Evolution of oxygen reduction current and biofilm on stainless steels cathodically polarised in natural aerated seawater

Catalysis of the electrochemical reduction of oxygen by bacteria isolated from electro-active biofilms formed in seawater

“…The formation of electro-active biofilms on stainless steel in seawater under constant polarization has already been described (Bergel et al, 2005;Dumas et al, 2007;Faimali et al, 2008). It has been demonstrated that the current evolution is due to the progressive catalysis of oxygen reduction induced by the biofilm growth on the electrode surface (Scotto et al, 1985;Mollica et al, 1997;Faimali et al, 2008). The electrodes were removed from the seawater basin when the current density stabilized.…”

“…These models convincingly explain the open circuit potential increase, which is one of the main parameters in corrosion, but they have not yet been able to reproduce in the laboratory the high current densities obtained under constant polarization with the natural biofilms formed in seawater. A recent study performed by polarizing seawater biofilms at different potential values demonstrated that the current recorded was proportional to the number of settled bacteria at each fixed potential (Faimali et al, 2008). At some potential values, the passive layer of the metal can also affect the electrochemical behavior of the interface.…”

Bacterial diversity of the cultivable fraction of a marine electroactive biofilm

“…A cathodically polarized electrode was placed in natural aerated sea water as described elsewhere [15,16]. Shortly, the electrode was cathodically polarized at −200 mV versus an Ag/AgCl reference electrode by means of a potentiostat.…”

Methods for enrichment of novel electrochemically-active microorganisms

“…In an early study on marine biofilm formation on stainless steel, Faimali et al (2008) found that the charge carrier density in the passive layer film did not depend on the biofilm. In a more recent review, Dominguez-Benetton et al (2012) outlined the limitations of EIS use in a mixed community BES.…”

“…In addition to making inferences from the raw data, EAM systems can frequently be fit using simple models with two or more time constants, such as a modified Randles cell, where the high frequency constant depends on the material interface and the low frequency constant depends on the metabolic processes. While application of EIS to enrichment studies is currently not widely practiced, it has frequently been reported in the study of sulphate-reducing bacteria in the context of biocorrosion and MFCs (Faimali et al, 2008;Chou et al, 2014).…”