Technology Overview

The depth of the oceans has always fascinated researchers over the years. The discovery of organisms that has adapted to perfect and permanent darkness, high pressure, and other unusual conditions has raised enormous interest. However, there is a lack of specialised instrumentation and equipment to simulate and study how biological materials behaves in a deep-sea environment is capable of withstanding high hydrostatic pressure up to 70 MPa (pressure experienced at 7,000m depth). In addition, it is equipped with a continuous chemostat to maintain biological cultures, a system for monitoring and logging of electrochemical data within the chamber real-time and in-situ with a sampling port.

This system is also capable of continuous logging of electrochemical data without the needing to disturb the system, maintaining a high pressure and anaerobic environment isolated from external disturbances even during sample collection procedures. This new instrument has been designed and developed to allow for the study of deep sea microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) in the laboratory as an example, but applicable to other live samples.

The technology provider is currently looking for licensing partners to commercialise this product.

Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages

This technology can house live samples and conduct electrochemical analysis in situ, keeping the entire system anaerobic and isolated from external disturbances.

The instrument has four main components:

1. Pre-reactor – this acts as a media reservoir. Two separate pumps allow for steady and continuous flow of pressurized fresh media in the secondary chamber and pressure control of a non-conductive, thermally, and chemically stable fluids into the main chamber. The pumps can be controlled remotely to simultaneously pressurize and maintain the pressure in the chambers.
2. Reactor – The reactor has a main chamber to equilibrate the pressure inside a secondary containment chamber (where the live / biological samples are housed.).
3. Post Reactor – This component controls the flow rate, allowing the sample of live cell suspension to grow within the chamber. The system can maintain the pre-set pressure and flow during the sampling procedure to minimize disturbances.
4. Potentiostat – This component allows for continuous monitoring and logging of electrochemical data within the reactor chamber.

Potential Applications

This technology can be mainly applied for the study of deep sea microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) in the laboratory, but can be extended to the following applications:

1. For any type of laboratory experiment that requires cultivation of live cells
2. Analysing the adaptation of biological materials subjected to variation of chemical or physical conditions

The instrument can be used for any type of laboratory experiment that requires the cultivation of live cells suspension in liquid in a continuous manner. With the possibility of collecting discrete samples, it can be used to analyse the adaptation of biological materials subjected to variation in chemical or physical conditions. The ports designed for the connection to a potentiostat can also be used to connect other type of probes to perform real time analysis.