Enhancement of COVID-19 detection time by means of electrothermal force

Abstract

The rapid spread and quick transmission of the new ongoing pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 has urged the scientific community to looking for strong technology to understand its pathogenicity, transmission, and infectivity, which helps in the development of effective vaccines and therapies. Furthermore, there was a great effort to improve the performance of biosensors so that they can detect the pathogenic virus quickly, in reliable and precise way. In this context, we propose a numerical simulation to highlight the important role of the design parameters that can significantly improve the performance of the biosensor, in particular the sensitivity as well as the detection limit. Applied alternating current electrothermal (ACET) force can generate swirling patterns in the fluid within the microfluidic channel, which improve the transport of target molecule toward the reaction surface and, thus, enhance the response time of the biosensor. In this work, the ACET effect on the SARS-CoV-2 S protein binding reaction kinetics and on the detection time of the biosensor was analyzed. Appropriate choice of electrodes location on the walls of the microchannel and suitable values of the dissociation and association rates of the binding reaction, while maintaining the same affinity, with and without ACET effect, are also, discussed to enhance the total performance of the biosensor and reduce its response time. The two-dimensional equations system is solved by the finite element approach. The best performance of the biosensor is obtained in the case where the response time decreased by 61% with AC applying voltage.

Numerical simulation and optimization of AC electrothermal microfluidic biosensor for COVID-19 detection through Taguchi method and artificial network

“…All the physical and biological (binding) parameters of SARS-CoV-2 S protein/Antibody [ 24 , 31 ] used for this numerical study are illustrated in Table 2 . In cases of 2-cycles microfluidic chips, the concentration of binding sites on the reaction surface is /2.…”

Diagnosis Methods for COVID-19: A Systematic Review

“…The paper-based microfluidic device is made of a series of nitrocellulose fibers or hydrophilic cellulose which guide liquid in paper by absorption [94]. Before the manufacturing process, these devices can be previously analyzed and developed using numerical simulations [95] to improve the performance of the sensor. The well-known advantages of the microfluidic systems, including the need for small volumes of samples, portability, and fast detection, are gaining increasing popularity as a tool to help to improve the detection and diagnosis of several diseases, such as malaria and diabetes [96][97][98][99][100] and also to evaluate the potential of novel therapies [101][102][103][104].…”

Taguchi optimization of integrated flow microfluidic biosensor for COVID-19 detection

“…When we fix the surface concentration of binding sites on the biosensor (B max 3, 3.10 −8 Mol.m −2 ) [16][17][18]22] and the height of the microchannel (H 40.10 −6 m), the Damkohler number becomes dependent only on the diffusion coefficient of the target analyte (D) and the adsorption analyte-antibody constant (K on ). As the diffusion coefficient can vary from 10 -11 to 10 -10 m 2 .…”

“…To enhance functionality and detection sensitivity of current biosensors, many numerical and experimental studies have been made. Magnetic effect [14], electrokinetic effect [15][16][17][18], optical forces [19], etc., are physical mechanisms that have been applied to agitate the flows in the microchannel to increase the rate of the biosensor binding reaction. Selmi et al [20,21] simulated the effect of confining flow (flux injection), added perpendicular to the main flow, to reduce the diffusion layer and improve biosensor performance.…”

“…Kaziz et al [18] performed a 3D study on the effect of reaction surface shape on the response time of microfluidic biosensor with electrothermal force. The obtained results are compared to the same biosensor having a rectangular binding surface [17]. Shahbazi et al [22] showed that the impact of moving the reaction surface position by just 500 μm decreased the saturation time by further than 50%.…”