Impact of Marine Bacterial Adhesion on the Physico-chemical Properties of Stainless Steel Surfaces

Douaae Ou-yahia, Kawtar Fikri-Benbrahim, Yassir Lekbach, Fadoua Bennouna, Hassan Barkai and Saad Ibnsouda Koraichi

Background and Objective: The understanding of bacterial adhesion and its effect on the properties of material surfaces in seawater is the key to mitigate biofilm formation and biofouling. Therefore, the objective of this work was to evaluate the impact of several marine bacterial strains on the physico-chemical properties of stainless steel materials. Materials and Methods: We firstly investigated the adhesion ability of 6 bacterial strains isolated from seawater in the port of Nador Aït Nsar (Morocco), on 304 and 316 sea-immersed stainless steels. Secondly, we evaluated the adhesion effect of combination of all isolated strains on physico-chemical characteristics of stainless steel surfaces. Results: The molecular identification of isolated strains indicated that these strains were Pseudomonas stutzeri (KP307770.1), Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (KJ767387.1), Bacillus velezensis (CP024897.1), Bacillus subtilis (KX827606.1), Serratia odorifera (NR_037110.1) and Exiguobacterium sibirricum (CP001022.1). The contact angle measurements of bacterial cells showed that all the strains had a hydrophilic character with ΔG_iwi ranging from 17.02 to 32.80 mJ m^–2, strong electron donating (γ^–) and weak electron accepting (γ⁺) potentials. For substrates surfaces, we found that both sea-immersed stainless steels were hydrophilic and presented strong electron-donor and weak electron-acceptor characters. The analysis of images obtained by environmental scanning electron microscopy showed that bacterial cells were able to adhere on both sea-immersed stainless steels. The experimental results also revealed that the properties of stainless steels surfaces were significantly changed following the adhesion of cells. Conclusion: The adhesion of bacterial strains on the stainless steel surfaces resulted in changing of the physico-chemical properties of these materials.

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