Primary Investigator: Peter Kang
Co-Investigators: NA
Industry Partners: NA
Award Type: Seed Grant – Undergraduate Research Scholar
Summary: Contaminants in fractured aquifers are often trapped in ‘hard-to-reach’ areas such as dead-end fractures and low porosity rock matrix, making it challenging to bioremediate. Our preliminary experiments showed branching microbes are promising candidates for remediating hard-to-reach areas as they can expand their hyphae against flow direction (ability to survey hard-to-reach areas) and effectively colonize pore spaces (higher surface area per unit volume). As such, the core remediation component of this project will be studying the potential of branching microbes for in situ bioremediation of fractured porous media.