industry
Besides medical and aquatic science applications the CytoSense flow cytometer
is well suited for measurements of many different kinds of particles and
aggregating particles and their formation kinetics. Examples are fibers as in
paper industry, particles studied in precipitation and transport studies, clay and
silt particles, active sludge particles, online early detection of filamentous 'light'
or bulking sludge, biological organisms such as fish eggs, small larvae,
nematodes, mites, bacteria and yeast etc. etc.
Any type of organisms, if suspended in water and small enough to fit into the
sample entrance tubing of the CytoSense, can be analyzed with the advantages
of rapid and quantitative flow cytometric detection. The standard CytoSense has
a 800 µm inlet tubing followed by a 1000 µm wide quartz measuring cuvette
(optional large cuvette 1.5 x 1.5 mm). The flow path is very smooth without
valves or sharp edges, so anything entering the inlet tubing will pass the
measuring point undisturbed. The length of the particles is only limited by the
fluidics shear forces which, although much lower as in standard flow cytometers,
increase with increasing particle lengths. In practice we have seen that
phytoplankton filaments and colonies of several millimeters are passing the
system undamaged.
The graph shows a flocculation kinetics experiment with algal cells.
Example of kinetic analysis of flocculation dynamics: To a suspension of
Scenedesmus cells a poly-electrolytic starch derivatie was added, causing a
clumping proces of the cells together into filamentous aggregates.
Measurements taken after 0, 5, 15 and 30 minutes show the flocculation
dynamics. Graph: cumulative size distribution as function of aggregate size at 4
time intervals.
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