Brennpunkte astrophysikalischer Forschung

Wolfgang Priester zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet     

Die Universität im Spannungsfeld von Bildung und Beruf

The harmony of research, general education and professional training, which was an essential element of the classical German university, has been deeply disturbed by the enormous increase of student numbers. We discuss, whether the demands for a transfer of technology and for a training of an elite of specialists can be combined with the task of a helpful education for the majority of our students. As an example for a flexible solution we present the program of summer-schools ("Ferienakademieprogramm") of the Technical University of Munich.     

Interaction between water flow and spatial distribution of microbial growth in a two-dimensional flow field in saturated porous media

Bacterial growth and its interaction with water flow was investigated in a two-dimensional flow field in a saturated porous medium. A flow cell (56 x 44 x 1 cm) was filled with glass beads and operated under a continuous flow of a mineral medium containing nitrate as electron acceptor. A glucose solution was injected through an injection port, simulating a point source contamination. Visible light transmission was used to observe the distribution of the growing biomass and water flow during the experiment. At the end of the experiment (on day 31), porous medium samples were destructively collected and analyzed for abundance of total and active bacterial cells, bacterial cell volume and concentration of polysaccharides and proteins. Microbial growth was observed in two stripes along the length of the flow cell, starting at the glucose injection port, where highest biomass concentrations were obtained. The spatial distribution of biomass indicated that microbial activity was limited by transverse mixing between glucose and nitrate media, as only in the mixing zone between the media high biological activities were achieved. The ability of the biomass to change the flow pattern in the flow cell was observed, indicating that the biomass was locally reducing the hydraulic conductivity of the porous medium. This bioclogging effect became evident when the injection of the glucose solution was turned off and water flow still bypassed the area around the glucose injection port, preserving the flow pattern as it was during the injection of the glucose solution. As flow bypass was possible in this system, the average hydraulic properties of the flow cell were not affected by the produced biomass. Even in the vicinity of the injection port, the total volume of the bacterial cells remained below 0.01% of the pore space and was unlikely to be responsible for the bioclogging. However, the bacteria produced large amounts of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), which likely caused the observed bioclogging effects.     

Experiments on vertical transverse mixing in a large-scale heterogeneous model aquifer

Vertical transverse mixing is known to be a controlling factor in natural attenuation of extended biodegradable plumes originating from continuously emitting sources. We perform conservative and reactive tracer tests in a quasi two-dimensional 14 m long sand box in order to quantify vertical mixing in heterogeneous media. The filling mimics natural sediments including a distribution of different hydro-facies, made of different sand mixtures, and micro-structures within the sand lenses. We quantify the concentration distribution of the conservative tracer by the analysis of digital images taken at steady state during the tracer-dye experiment. Heterogeneity causes plume meandering, leading to distorted concentration profiles. Without knowledge about the velocity distribution, it is not possible to determine meaningful vertical dispersion coefficients from the concentration profiles. Using the stream-line pattern resulting from an inverse model of previous experiments in the sand box, we can correct for the plume meandering. The resulting vertical dispersion coefficient is approximately approximately 4 x 10(-)(9) m(2)/s. We observe no distinct increase in the vertical dispersion coefficient with increasing travel distance, indicating that heterogeneity has hardly any impact on vertical transverse mixing. In the reactive tracer test, we continuously inject an alkaline solution over a certain height into the domain that is occupied otherwise by an acidic solution. The outline of the alkaline plume is visualized by adding a pH indicator into both solutions. From the height and length of the reactive plume, we estimate a transverse dispersion coefficient of approximately 3 x 10(-)(9) m(2)/s. Overall, the vertical transverse dispersion coefficients are less than an order of magnitude larger than pore diffusion coefficients and hardly increase due to heterogeneity. Thus, we conclude for the assessment of natural attenuation that reactive plumes might become very large if they are controlled by vertical dispersive mixing.     

Bioremediation of chlorobenzene-contaminated ground water in an in situ reactor mediated by hydrogen peroxide

New in situ reactive barrier technologies were tested nearby a local aquifer in Bitterfeld, Saxonia-Anhalt, Germany, which is polluted mainly by chlorobenzene (CB), in concentrations up to 450 microM. A reactor filled with original aquifer sediment was designed for the microbiological remediation of the ground water by indigenous bacterial communities. Two remediation variants were examined: (a) the degradation of CB under anoxic conditions in the presence of nitrate; (b) the degradation of CB under mixed electron acceptor conditions (oxygen+nitrate) using hydrogen peroxide as the oxygen-releasing compound. Under anoxic conditions, no definite degradation of CB was observed. Adding hydrogen peroxide (2.94 mM) and nitrate (2 mM) led to the disappearance of CB (ca. 150 microM) in the lower part of the reactor, accompanied by a strong increase of the number of cultivable aerobic CB degrading bacteria in reactor water and sediment samples, indicating that CB was degraded mainly by productive bacterial metabolism. Several aerobic CB degrading bacteria, mostly belonging to the genera Pseudomonas and Rhodococcus, were isolated from reactor water and sediments. In laboratory experiments with reactor water, oxygen was rapidly released by hydrogen peroxide, whereas biotic-induced decomposition reactions of hydrogen peroxide were almost four times faster than abiotic-induced decomposition reactions. A clear chemical degradation of CB mediated by hydrogen peroxide was not observed. CB was also completely degraded in the reactor after reducing the hydrogen peroxide concentration to 880 microM. The CB degradation completely collapsed after reducing the hydrogen peroxide concentration to 440 microM. In the following, the hydrogen peroxide concentrations were increased again (to 880 microM, 2.94 mM, and 880 microM, respectively), but the oxygen demand for CB degradation was higher than observed before, indicating a shift in the bacterial population. During the whole experiment, nitrate was uniformly reduced during the flow path in the reactor.