人类认知由微生物导致的金属腐蚀现象距今已有一个多世纪的历史。最近20年,微生物腐蚀(Microbiologically influenced corrosion,MIC)已成为金属腐蚀的一个研究热点。因为缺乏对MIC机理的深入了解和认识,人们甚至认为MIC是腐蚀领域中的一个“谜”。因此,迫切需要了解MIC的发生机理。最新的研究结果表明,金属的微生物腐蚀在本质上是一个生物电化学过程。在微生物与金属并存的环境中,当电子供体(如碳源)不存在或消耗掉之后,微生物用金属代替碳源获取电子,导致金属发生微生物腐蚀。另外一种腐蚀机理是,微生物的代谢产物(比如有机酸)导致金属腐蚀。腐蚀是一个能量释放的反应过程,微生物通过腐蚀金属得到维持其生命所必需的能量。目前,电化学方法已应用于微生物金属腐蚀研究,学者们提出了诸如“阴极去极化”等经典理论。但单纯从电化学角度研究微生物腐蚀金属可能得到一些片面的结论。随着对这一领域研究的不断深入人们认识到必须结合生物能量学以及生物电化学方面的知识,以更好地理解微生物影响金属腐蚀的进程。本文总结这方面的最新研究进展,并着重介绍“生物催化阴极还原”理论(Biocatalytic cathodic sulfate reduction,BCSR)和“电化学微生物腐蚀”理论(Electrical microbial influenced corrosion,EMIC)等最新的金属微生物腐蚀机理。本文主要从生物能量学和生物电化学方面介绍金属微生物腐蚀机理研究,这是目前国际上一种新的研究方法和思路。BCSR就是依据这一思路解释了微生物为什么和怎样腐蚀金属这一MIC研究领域中的这一难题。 Human cognition The phenomenon of metal corrosion caused by microorganisms has been more than a century old. In recent 20 years, Microbiologically Corrosion (MIC) has become a hot topic in metal corrosion. Because of the lack of understanding and understanding of MIC mechanism, people even think that MIC is a “mystery” in the field of corrosion. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand the mechanism of MIC. Recent research shows that the microbial corrosion of metals is essentially a bioelectrochemical process. In the environment where microorganisms coexist with metals, when the electron donor (such as a carbon source) is absent or depleted, the microorganisms replace the carbon source with the metal to obtain the electrons, resulting in the microbial corrosion of the metal. Another mechanism of corrosion is that microbial metabolites (such as organic acids) cause metal corrosion. Corrosion is a reaction process of energy release. Microorganisms obtain the energy necessary to maintain their life by corroding metal. At present, the electrochemical method has been applied to the study of microbial corrosion of metals, and scholars have proposed classical theories such as “cathodic depolarization”. However, it is possible to obtain some unilateral conclusions by simply studying the corrosion of metals by microorganisms from the electrochemical point of view. With the deepening of research in this field, people have realized that the combination of bioenergetics and bioelectrochemistry must be combined in order to better understand the impact of microorganisms on the process of metal corrosion. This article summarizes the latest research progress in this field and focuses on the recent “Biocatalytic cathodic sulfate reduction” (BCSR) and “electrochemical microbial corrosion” (EMIC) Metal Microbial Corrosion Mechanism. This paper introduces the mechanism of metal micro-organisms corrosion mainly from bioenergetics and bioelectrochemistry, which is a new research method and idea in the world. BCSR is based on this idea to explain why microorganisms and how to corrode the metal in the field of MIC study this problem.