A phenomenological model for the biofilm resistance against biocide activity is analyzed in this work. The effect of different biofilm physical attributes when exposed to antibiotic treatment is investigated. Pertinent aspects affecting the biofilm resistance characteristics such as transport of the bulk fluid within the reactor, diffusive-reactive transport of the dissolved phase into the biofilm, convective-reactive transport of particulate phase, dynamic biofilm thickness, cell detachment, extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) production and persister cell formation are analyzed and incorporated in the presented model. Microbial survival fraction is correlated in terms of pertinent non-dimensional groups from biofilm and bulk fluid governing equations and the effect of persister cell formation on the biofilm response to biocide disinfection is demonstrated. To the authors' best knowledge, the current model is the first comprehensive model that considers several physical attributes simultaneously and presents a set of correlations to predict the microbial survival of a biofilm subject to the biocide treatment. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.