Laboratory-based model of microbiologically induced corrosion of copper.

The interactions of bacteria isolated from corroded copper coupons on thin films of copper evaporated onto germanium internal reflection elements were evaluated nondestructively in real time by attentuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The films were stable in the presence of flowing or static sterile culture medium. When exposed to and colonized by the bacterium CCI 8, the copper thin film corroded. Corrosion was enhanced under quiescent conditions. In conjunction with corrosion of the copper thin film was an increase in the concentration of polysaccharide material at the copper-biofilm interface. A different bacterium (CCI 11) did not corrode the copper thin film, and the establishment of this bacterium on the copper surface prevented corrosion of the thin film by CCI 8.