TY - GEN A1 - Gorbushina, Anna T1 - Life on the rocks and other hard surfaces N2 - The story of how black fungi survive harsh conditions on sun-exposed desert rocks and material surfaces is fascinating. In the presentation examples of how knowledge of these organisms can be of practical value (e.g., in biodeterioration studies, such as on stone markers in cemeteries) would be given. Among other stories, the example of how roof tiles amended with a titanium oxide layers as a biocide actually selected for the black fungi will be told. A hypothesis about how these organisms would likely be found on solar panels and some early BAM work in that area will be presented. This then brings the connection to a study ripe for investigation in North Carolina. The talk presents the development of a study aiming at deciphering the influence of microbial biofilm formation on the energy conversion efficiency of solar photovoltaic panels or modules at two facilities (one facility under the impact of high intensity of animal agriculture and high deposition of ammonia from atmosphere and the other with low animal agriculture and lower atmospheric ammonia deposition) in North Carolina. The main hypothesis of the study is that microbial biofilm formation on solar photovoltaic panels will lead to significant decreases in energy conversion efficiency of solar photovoltaic modules and biofilm formation will also be accelerated by high ammonia concentration in the ambient atmosphere and high nitrogen deposition. T2 - Dr. Michael D. Aitken Symposium CY - Chapel Hill, NC, USA DA - 08.11.2019 KW - Black fungi KW - Solar panel KW - Biofilm PY - 2019 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/50125 AN - OPUS4-50125 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany