When the U.S. military deploys tactical vehicles to hot and humid climates, microbes can grow on surfaces inside and out, potentially compromising the performance of specialized paints and other protective coatings.

These microbes can clump together to form communities called biofilms, and combatting them requires understanding what specific microbes comprise them, according to a research team at Montana State University. This is where MSU’s Center for Biofilm Engineering comes into play.

The U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program recently awarded the CBE’s Brent Peyton, a professor in MSU’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, a $2.5 million, three-year contract to study what specific microbes make up these destructive biofilms and how to develop better coating testing methods. The CBE project team includes Matthew Fields, center director; Darla Goeres, professor of regulatory research; Chris Jones, research professor of biofilm science and technology; and Heidi Smith, assistant research professor of microbiology and cell biology. Kylie Bodle and Ghazal Vahidi are postdoctoral researchers doing detailed testing. Once fully staffed, the team will include another postdoctoral researcher and two undergraduate MSU students. Erika Espinosa-Ortiz, assistant professor of biological engineering at Utah State University, is also on the contract.

“The Department of Defense’s tactical vehicles utilize special paints to prevent rust and corrosion, as well as some coatings that are resistant to chemical agents like nerve gas,” Peyton said. “We’re trying to characterize the organisms found on these vehicles, which will help to develop better coating-testing procedures so that coatings can be tested more rapidly and more accurately.” The MSU team will be working with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division to assist coordinating sampling from fleet locations.

Biofilms can be tricky to eradicate or otherwise neutralize because individual microbes, often of varying species, join forces to produce a slimy coating to encase them, providing them with a significant level of protection from disinfectants and removal techniques. It’s important to identify what microbes are in the particular biofilms that form on the surface of the military’s land, amphibious and air vehicles, in order to protect against them, Peyton said.

But existing test methods frequently do not provide reliable data because they often use approaches that submerge the biofilm samples. Instead, Peyton and his team plan to use a novel industrial surface biofilm reactor to replicate the hot and humid conditions commonly found in tropical and subtropical environments. These conditions make fertile territories for growing microbes.

“We’re trying to make the laboratory test methods more realistic,” Peyton said. “We’ll be growing organisms from real military vehicles in the field, some coated and some uncoated with the military paints, in specially designed bioreactors that control the humidity and the temperature in a way that is more representative of actual use.”

The CBE team will also use state-of-the-art biofilm characterization techniques to figure out what organisms are causing the problems.

“Most of the work that’s been done before has been using very traditional microbiological techniques,” Peyton said. “We’re upping that game with DNA sequencing, laser microscopes and other state-of-the-art techniques.”

The DNA sequencing will help to identify the microbes more accurately. Peyton and his team are working with The Sherwin-Williams Company to develop new, specialized coating test methods.

“Better test methods would allow Sherwin-Williams to develop and test new coatings more quickly and get them onto military vehicles that could reduce or prevent this problem,” Peyton said.

The results of the study may also have utility beyond the military.

“I believe the new test methods and coatings that result from this study would apply to a variety of environmental paints,” he said. “We’ll publish our testing procedures so the coatings industry can use these reactors and do a better job at their testing, as well.”

Founded at MSU in 1990, the CBE is the world’s first research center dedicated to the study of biofilms.

This article was originally published by MSU News Service and is reprinted with permission.