Marine steel protection based on biomineralization for sustainable development of coastal cities

Abstract

Corrosion research, spanning over 150 years, remains critically important, particularly for addressing marine microbially induced corrosion on steel, which causes significant economic losses and safety risks. This study proposes a biomineralization method using marine urease-producing bacteria to protect steel. Urease-producing bacteria were enriched to promote biomineralization, and a seawater corrosion experiment was conducted to evaluate its efficacy. Results showed that biomineralization significantly reduced corrosion rates, especially with yeast extract enrichment, and decreased the abundance of sulfate-reducing bacteria and sulfur-oxidizing bacteria in biofilms. Functional gene analysis identified Thioalkalivibrio as a key indicator of sulfate reduction. The findings demonstrated that the formed biomineralized film acted as a protective layer to isolate the steel from the corrosive seawater, which contributed to the advancement of novel techniques for corrosion inhibition of marine steel to achieve long-term sustainability for ships and engineering structures.