About This Chapter

Contributing Author:  Alfred Cunningham

Not all biofilms are bad. Biofilms are a natural phenomenon in our everyday environments and even thrive in extremely hot and cold environment. Biofilms can also be engineered for beneficial purposes.  For example, since certain biofilms can subsist on petroleum oil (and hence clog oil pipelines) these same types of biofilms can be engineered to aid in the cleanup of an oil spill.  This chapter presents a view of naturally occurring and engineered biofilms that are either benign or beneficial.  (This chapter is underway, but does not yet appear in the hypertextbook.)