Publisher's Synopsis
Biofilms are almost ubiquitous, but despite their important role in many different situations, including wastewater treatment processes, there is still little systematic understanding of biofilm structure and development. Traditional engineering approaches have, with remarkable success, mainly considered biofilm as a "black box", disregarding its inherent complexity.;However, the limits of this approach have been reached and further progress requires deeper insight into the structure, growth and dynamics of biofilms, including interaction between different micro-organisms inhabiting the biofilm matrix.;The development of better model concepts is being complemented by recent developments in analytical and microscopic techniques which give a much better characterization of biofilms, leading again to new ideas of their structure and development.;This book comprises the selected proceedings of the international conference and workshop "Biofilm structure, growth and dynamics: need for new concepts?" which focused on improving concepts of heterogeneous biofilm structure, growth and dynamics in order to be able to predict and manipulate biofilm processes.
