A Changeable Lab-on-a-Chip Detector for Marine Nonindigenous Microorganisms in Ship's Ballast Water.

Myint Maw,Long Zhao,Bowen Dai,Zhen Peng,Junsheng Wang,Yanjuan Wang,Xinxiang Pan

doi:10.3390/mi9010020

Abstract

The spread and invasion of many nonindigenous species in the ship’s ballast water around the world has been a hazard and threat to ecology, economy, and human health. The rapid and accurate detection of marine invasive species in ship’s ballast water is essential. This article is aimed at analysing ballast water quality by means of a changeable microfluidic chip detector thus comply with the D-2 standard of ship’s ballast water management and sediment convention. The detection system was designed through the integration of microfluidic chip technology, the impedance pulse sensing and LED light induced chlorophyll fluorescence (LED-LICF) detection. This system can measure the number, size, shape, and volume of targeted microorganisms, and it can also determine the chlorophyll fluorescence intensity, which is an important factor in analysing the activity of phytoplankton. The targeted samples were Chlorella volutis, Dunaliella salina, Platymonas subcordiformis, Chrysophytes, Escherichia coli, and Enterococci. The whole detection or operation can be accomplished through online detection in a few minutes with using micron volume of the sample solution. The valid data outputs are simultaneously displayed in terms of both impedance pulse amplitudes and fluorescent intensity signals. The detection system is designed for multi-sizes real time detection through changing the microchannel sizes on the microfluidic chip. Because it can successfully detect the label-free microorganisms, the system can be applicable to in-situ detections with some modifications to the system.

Highlights

With the development of the world shipping industry, the hazard and threat of marine invasive species to the marine ecology, economy, environment, and human health has become extremely significant and serious [1]
Known as resistive pulse sensing (RPS), is a method for counting and sizing cells or particles that will increase in impedance when passing through a small orifice or a small channel suspended in an electrolytic solution [31,32]
We separately tested the reliability of system for impedance pulse changes and tested later for fluorescence intensity

Summary

Introduction

With the development of the world shipping industry, the hazard and threat of marine invasive species to the marine ecology, economy, environment, and human health has become extremely significant and serious [1]. The supply of ship’s ballast water and the draining process is the most common cause of the spread of marine non-indigenous organisms in the sea. These have already caused the catastrophic damage to the marine ecosystems. It causes fouling of ships, buoys, and harbour structures [2]. Ship’s ballast water generally contains various species of microalgae, bacteria, viruses, etc. More research needs to be conducted on methods to prevent the introduction of unwanted species via ballast water.

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