I want to compare the change in both the surface tension of bacteria and the substrate while bacteria is attached on any substrate. I found articles where they measure the contact angle of the bacteria attached fabric. But the protocols are really not clear to me. Can you please suggest me any protocol from your experience ? Sharing articles will also help greatly.
Thanks in advance.
Surface tension is a characteristic used to desribe molecules, not supramolecular aggregates, let alone whole organisms. Your question has therefore no anwer.
Conact angle measurement makes more sense, as it reflects interaction between two surfaces, but reckon that you are essentially interested in bacterial adhesion force to the fabrics of interest. You should therefore search for an answer suitable to you in tha latter directions.
Hi Nahida,
could you please share such a publication here? With this information, I might be able to help you
Youssef Akil Please find the attached article for reference. Thank you so much for your reply.
Hi Nahida,
sorry for the delay here, I was travelling a lot and couldnt find the time to reply to you, I hope I am not too late.
The attached paper already gives you quite a nice overview about what you have to do: You want to determine the surface tension of your liquid and the surface free energy of your textile. Surface Free Energy is the surface tension of solids.
In your case, a force based method is recommended. For surface tension you can measure as stated in the paper with the Wilhelmy Plate method. This is the easiest and quickest method for determining the surface tension with a force based method. If you do not have cationic surfactants, the Plate is the way to go.
The surface free energy of your textiles, you can determine with the so called Washburn method (here are some further information: https://www.kruss-scientific.com/services/education-theory/glossary/washburn-method/). For this method, you take your textile into a special holder, bring it in contact with the liquids and see, how quickly the mass increases over time due to the absorption of the liquid. This gives you information about contact angles and from this, you can calculate the surface free energy.
What is really important for you to know: In the attached paper, they used the Equation of State model. This model, I would not recommend anymore. Nowadays, the main model is OWRK. OWRK splits the total surface free energy into polar and non-polar parts. This is important knowledge, because when you bring in contact a liquid and a solid for adhesion, the non-polar parts of liquid and solid interact and the polar parts. Total values do not help you, because the polar/nonpolar ratio might be completely different. With OWRK you get both parts of your textile, when you do the Washburn method. For the Liquid, you can also determine polar/liquid parts with a Force Tensiometer.
I hope, this helps you. Please feel free to contact me again in case, you have any questions. My mail adress is [email protected] if you want to discuss further
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