The analysis of pervious pavement microbial biofilms by electron microscopy.

Recent research has revealed the structure of microbial biofilms growing within pervious paving systems. Growing predominantly due to the presence of hydrocarbons, these oil-degrading biofilms grow on the geotextile, Inbitex™ on which the majority of oil is immobilised. The properties of Inbitex encourage early biofilm growth and a covering of the surface proceeds
rapidly. When mature, the biofilm displays many morphological types of bacteria and fungi, clearly visible by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
The presence of oil droplets within vacuoles in bacterial cells was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), bacteria not grown in oil were shown not to possess the same sized cellular inclusions and no oil was observed within the bacterial cell structures. Electron microscopy is a useful tool with which to analyse the effect of treatments on the microbial biofilm and allows the visualisation of microscopic structures. The relevance of such investigations to
pervious pavement systems (PPS) water quality results are discussed as are biofilm structure and function.