Advance Microfluidic Approach over Conventional Batch and CTR for Improving the Efficiency of E-coli Cell Lysis by CuO Nanoparticles

Abstract

AbstractInterest in employing metal oxide nanoparticles as antimicrobial agents is growing. Among various nanoparticles, CuO nanoparticles (NP) has gained vast attention among researchers due to their unusual properties. Various studies has been reported on the antimicrobial activity of CuO NP on microbes. But, no studies can be found on designing suitable reactor for this system. In this study, conventional batch, continuous tubular reactor (CTR), and advanced microfluidic (MF) reactor systems were employed to carry out antimicrobial activity of CuO NP on E Coli..From the experimental results, we observe that minimum cell viability obtained in the batch reactor was about 48.6 %. CTR provided better contact between CuO NPs and E-Coli cells, hence cell viability of 45.3 % was obtained which is lesser than that of batch system. While, in the microfluidic system, when the contact between CuO NPs and E-Coli cells were increased by scaling down the diameter of the channels from 1,200 μm to 600 μm the efficiency of the cell lysis by CuO NP increased from 68.77 % to 95 %. This drastic improvement in cell lysis rates from batch to microchannel is attributed to high surface area to volume ratio and active internal circulation in microfluidic flows. Hence, microfluidic system, which operates at negligible gravity was found to be more efficient in carrying out microbial cell lysis using CuO NP nanoparticles.