INTRODUCTION

Metals have been in use since humans discovered copper over 9000 years ago.
However, the story has not always been an ever-lasting one. The concept of
corrosion, previously misconceived to be rust is as old as the discovery of metal
use. Spanning across all forms and alloys of metals, the search for non-corroding
metal has been futile. Why do metals corrode? Metals rarely occur in nature in
their pure form (with the exception of gold, platinum and a few others); they are
usually found as ores, bound to other substances like sulphides, oxides, etc. Energy
must therefore be expended (as in a blast furnace) to extract the metals from the
sulphides, oxides, etc. to obtain pure metals. Pure metals contain more bound
energy, representing a higher energy state than that found in the nature as sulphides
or oxides. As all material in the universe strives to return to its lowest energy state,
pure metals also strive to revert to their lowest energy state which they had as
sulphides or oxides. One of the ways in which metals can revert to a low energy
level is by corrosion. The products of corrosion of metals are often sulphides or
oxides.

Corrosion is a gradual, usually natural degradation or destruction of materials

brought about by either a chemical or electrochemical interaction between the
material and its immediate environment. Of the many different types of corrosion,
our focus of study is the microbiological corrosion. Microbiologically influenced
corrosion (MIC) is a complicated electrochemical process in which the corrosion
of material is initiated or accelerated by microorganisms without changing its
electrochemical nature (Fatah et al., 2013; San et al., 2014). Sulfate-reducing
bacteria (SRB) are a major bacterial group involved in microbiologically
influenced corrosion (MIC) (Muyzer and Stams, 2008). SRB influence on the
corrosion process is still under investigation as is the methods of reducing these
SRB induced corrosion. A common method is the using of biocides however,
the chemical biocides have been known to pollute the
environment and could not eliminate SRB utterly, as the
physiological attributes of biofilm equip SRB with an inherent
resistance to antimicrobial agents (Donlan and Costerton, 2002).
Another anti-corrosion method is using microbes which are able to influence the
growth or metabolic activities of SRB, and this environmental method is described
as microbial inhibition. (Qui et al., 2016).
Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus discovered by Stolp and Starr (1963) is
a gram-negative predatory bacterium which can attack and
consume other gram-negative bacteria (Dwidar et al., 2011;
Monnappa et al., 2014). The microbial-inhibitive effect of this
bacteria on the corrosion causing SRBs is being studied in this
experiment. Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is known to selectively
prey on SRBs however, the extent of its activities on reducing
carbon steel corrosion is under investigation in this study.
However, it has been proposed, not yet studied, that certain
substances can be used to induce higher efficacy in the inhibition
performance of this microbe. Also, it is possible that the activities
of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus on its own can provide suitable
environment for corrosion. This hypothesis will also be
investigated in the course of this experiment.