TY - JOUR
T1 - Vibration at structural resonance frequency of hydrophilic substrates enhances biofilm removal
AU - Ballance, William C.
AU - Oh, Inkyu
AU - Lai, Yang
AU - Elhebeary, Mohamed
AU - Saif, Taher
AU - Hu, Yuhang
AU - Kong, Hyunjoon
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported partially by the National Science Foundation ( CBET-1403491 to H. Kong). YH would like to acknowledge the funding support from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1554326 and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative under Award FA9550-09-1-0669-DOD35CAP . TS would like to acknowledge the funding support from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1562694 . Confocal laser scanning microscopy was performed at Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois. Electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy was performed at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory Central Facilities at the University of Illinois.
Funding Information:
This work was supported partially by the National Science Foundation (CBET-1403491 to H. Kong). YH would like to acknowledge the funding support from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1554326 and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative under Award FA9550-09-1-0669-DOD35CAP. TS would like to acknowledge the funding support from the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1562694. Confocal laser scanning microscopy was performed at Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois. Electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy was performed at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory Central Facilities at the University of Illinois.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019
PY - 2019/11/15
Y1 - 2019/11/15
N2 - Biological fouling damages both human health and industry by causing infection, corrosion, structural failure, and drag on marine ships. Current efforts to clean bio-fouled surfaces by externally applying intensive mechanical energy often result in relapsed cell growth. Therefore, this study examines the extent that cell-structure interactions are orchestrated by vibration frequency, voltage-induced energy input mode, and surface energy to clean bio-fouled surfaces. This study was conducted with a tough polyacrylamide gel-coated polypropylene substrate attached to a flexible dielectric actuator that can vibrate when an oscillatory voltage is applied. We found that the maximum biofilm removal occurs by vibrating the gel-coated surface at the structural resonance frequency using a square wave input voltage. In addition, tuning the surface energy of the substrate was necessary for biofilm removal by decreasing the bacterial adhesive force. The findings from this study can be broadly applicable to assembling various advanced anti-fouling medical and industrial devices.
AB - Biological fouling damages both human health and industry by causing infection, corrosion, structural failure, and drag on marine ships. Current efforts to clean bio-fouled surfaces by externally applying intensive mechanical energy often result in relapsed cell growth. Therefore, this study examines the extent that cell-structure interactions are orchestrated by vibration frequency, voltage-induced energy input mode, and surface energy to clean bio-fouled surfaces. This study was conducted with a tough polyacrylamide gel-coated polypropylene substrate attached to a flexible dielectric actuator that can vibrate when an oscillatory voltage is applied. We found that the maximum biofilm removal occurs by vibrating the gel-coated surface at the structural resonance frequency using a square wave input voltage. In addition, tuning the surface energy of the substrate was necessary for biofilm removal by decreasing the bacterial adhesive force. The findings from this study can be broadly applicable to assembling various advanced anti-fouling medical and industrial devices.
KW - Bacterial adhesion
KW - Biofilm
KW - Biofouling
KW - Dielectric elastomer actuators
KW - Tough hydrogel
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U2 - 10.1016/j.snb.2019.126950
DO - 10.1016/j.snb.2019.126950
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070572508
SN - 0925-4005
VL - 299
JO - Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical
JF - Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical
M1 - 126950
ER -