Effects of Hydrophilicity, Adhesion Work, and Fluid Flow on Biofilm Formation of PDMS in Microfluidic Systems

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has been the most widely used material in microfluidic systems, especially for cell biology applications. However, the antibacterial performance of PDMS in flow conditions has never been reported in the literature. In this paper, we analyzed the effects of contact angle (CA), adhesion force (work), and surface free energy on the antibacterial activities of PDMS by varying the ratio of curing agents (crosslinking degree) and surface modification with oxygen plasma. The results show that the Young's modulus has no particular effects on bacterial adhesion compared to the CAs of samples. For the first time, we analyzed the adhesion work (AW) effect on biofilm formation, and we found that biofilms tend to form on the surface with less AW. Furthermore, we analyzed the dual effect of hydrophilicity and shear force induced by fluid flow on the bacterial adhesion in PDMS microfluidic systems. We found that at low flow rates in microfluidic conditions, the adhesion of the bacteria on the PDMS surface is inhibited when the fluid flow exceeds a certain value. It required higher shear force to inhibit bacterial adhesion on the hydrophilic surface than on the hydrophobic surface. Therefore, hydrophilicity might be the dominant factor affecting bacterial adhesion.