Quartz crystal Microbalance with dissipation monitoring for biomedical applications: Open source and low cost prototype with active temperature control
Year: 2023
Authors: Muñoz, G. G.; Millicovsky, M. J.; Reta, J. M.; Cerrudo, J. I.; Peñalva, A.; Machtey, M.; Torres, R. M; Zalazar, M. A.
Keywords: Biomedical applications; Dissipation monitoring; Quartz Crystal Microbalance; Temperature control
Advances in sensors have revolutionized the biomedical engineering field, having an extreme affinity for specific analytes also providing an effective, real-time, point-of-care testing for an accurate diagnosis. Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) is a well-established sensor that has been successfully applied in a broad range of applications to monitor and explore various surface interactions, in situ thin-film formations, and layer properties. This technology has gained interest in biomedical applications since novel QCM systems are able to work in liquid media. QCM with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) is an expanded version of a QCM that measures changes in damping properties of adsorbed layers thus providing information on its viscoelastic nature. In this article, an open source and low cost QCM-D prototype for biomedical applications was developed. In addition, the system was validated using different Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) concentrations due to its importance for many medical applications. The statistics show a bigger dissipation of the system as the fluid becomes more viscous, also having a very acceptable sensibility when temperature is controlled.
