Accumulation of E. Coli bacteria in mini-channel flow.

The objective of this research is to design and optimize a mini/micro-channel based surface-accumulator of E. coli bacteria to be detected by acoustic wave biosensors. A computational approach has been carried out using the state of the art software, CFD-ACE with water as bacteria bearing fluid. E. coli bacteria have been modeled as random discrete particles tracked by solving the Lagrangian equations. The design challenges are to achieve low shear force (pico-N), high concentration at accumulation, and high enough Reynolds number to avoid bacteria swimming. A range of low Reynolds number (Re) has been considered along with the effects of particle boundary interactions, gravity, Saffman lift, etc. More than two orders of magnitude higher concentration at the accumulation than the inlet concentration, and lower shear force of less than pico-N have been achieved in the optimized designs.