A bacteriophilic resin, synthesis and E. coli sequestration study

Abstract

The poly-cationic pyridinium-Merrifield resin I was prepared and characterized by elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy and SEM, with a loading of 2.96 × 10⁻³ mol of pyridinium chloride groups per gram. Its sequestering properties towards bacteria were evaluated, using E. coli as a model. The capture of E. coli was followed by Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) that showed the effectiveness and the celerity of the capture, i.e. around 90% of cells after 3 h of contact. The bacterial loading was evaluated at 7 mg bacteria per g resin. The bacteriophilic behaviour of resin I was confirmed by confocal microscopy which evidenced the presence of bacteria at the surface of the beads. Attempts to correlate CE capture results to bacterial counting at the surface of beads are presented.