Biosorption of copper by a bacterial biofilm on a flexible polyvinyl chloride conduit.

Inexpensive technologies with less-than-optimal efficiencies as a strategy for countering economic restraints to pollution control have been evaluated by using a laboratory-scale biotreatment process for copper-containing effluent. Economizing measures include the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cylinders fashioned from commercially available flexible PVC conduit to support a biofilm that was cultured in an inexpensive medium prepared in wastewater. The biofilm was challenged by aqueous copper solution in a bioreactor and subsequently analyzed under a scanning electron microscope with energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis.