Detection Of Escherichia coli In Water Using Capacitance Biosensor

Abstract

Pathogenic bacteria that are the main causative agent for biological contamination of water have always posed one of the most serious threats to public health, and continue to be specifically dangerous with the rise in antibiotic resistance. The incidence of these infectious agents needs rapid, point-of-care and real-time sensors for their detection and monitoring. Therefore, continuous real-time monitoring provides better microbiological control of the water and helps prevent contaminated water from reaching the households. In this research we have developed a method to detect E.coli(Escherichia coli) bacteria in water depending upon a large scale capacitance biosensor in the presence and absence of E.colicells. First we show that the sensor is able to detect E. coli(Gram-negative) bacteria in water samples. Next, we demonstrate the sensor’s ability to measure the bacteria concentration suspended in water sample by comparing the results to those obtained by the traditional measurement using spectrophotometer. The results determine a correlation between the capacitance measurement andthe real bacterial concentration which indicate an inversely relationship between the bacterial concentration and the capacitance measurement.Our investigations show that the capacitance biosensor has the potential to be extremely effective at detecting sudden bacterial contaminations found in drinking water in real-time and it is promising for the low-cost monitoring of bacterial growth and the detection of specific E.coliconcentration due to the consistency and ease-of-use of capacitance measurements