Phillip
Butterfield, PhD
Civil & Environmental Engineering
- Telephone: 509.358.7761
- E-mail: butterfield@wsu.edu
- Printer-friendly fact sheet (PDF)
Finding Solutions for Aircraft Drinking Water
Have you ever stepped into a riverbed with bare feet and wondered about the
slippery stuff on the rocks? It’s biofilm, a substance that forms when bacteria
meet surfaces in wet environments. This slimy film allows the bacteria to become
anchored to all sorts of materials, with both negative and positive results.
Now consider that biofilm grows on the drinking water storage tanks aboard
commercial aircraft and that this growth cannot be prevented. Until now,
researchers have not probed into the issue of aircraft drinking water, which is
stored in tanks lined with materials (ABS and PETG plastics) uncommon in
municipal water systems.
Enter
Phillip Butterfield, a research professor at WSU Spokane, who is asking
clearly important questions as he tackles this problem. What kinds of microbes
form in these tanks and make their way into water glasses? How effectively do
current disinfection methods work? What potential does biofilm have to harbor
harmful bacteria?
Butterfield approaches these questions through sophisticated laboratory work
that simulates the tank environment. Using a programmable controller, the
contents of CDC biofilm reactors are replaced with fresh tap water by
controlling valves, feed pumps, and reactor mixers.
One reactor receives water amended with calcium to increase the water's
hardness; another is amended with carbon compounds to increase the biodegradable
carbon in the water. A third reactor receives un-amended tap water. After two
months, Butterfield’s lab samples the reactors for biofilm and evaluates the
success of the disinfection regimen.