Concentrating and inactivating the surrogate of SARS CoV-2 using electric fields on micro-chip platforms

Abstract

Since the unravelling of the Covid-19 pandemic, studying methods of virus inactivation have become more important than ever. Many studies focus on the chemical and optical methods of inactivation. Very limited work has been carried out in studying the electrical methods of virus inactivation. The work presented in this thesis attempts to pioneer a study that examines the effect of electric fields generated by micro-electrodes on the survival of the surrogate of the SARS CoV-2 virus.
For this purpose, electrodes with 7 different geometries were micro-fabricated and characterized. A liquid suspension of the phi-6 bacteriophage (a surrogate of the SARS virus) was tested on all the different electrodes with different input voltages, frequencies and medium parameters.
The study showed that the treatment on specific electrode designs tailored with specific voltage and medium parameters showed a decrease in the virus titer ranging from half a log to a maximum of 2 logs. These results are promising for the development of products like electric facemasks, micro-filters and m-TAS systems.