Study of dielectrophoretic crossover frequency as identification of ESKAPE pathogens using an AC field

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unique dielectrophoretic crossover frequency (f_x0) responses for real-time identification of six ESKAPE pathogens, Enterococcus faecium (EF), Staphylococcus aureus (SA), Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP), Acinetobacter baumannii (AB), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) and Enterobacter aerogenes (EA) in the frequency range of kHz to MHz using an AC field. Design/methodology/approach The 2-shell model approach is employed using My DEP and COMSOL Multiphysics simulations to compute the proper dielectric modeling of ESKAPE pathogens. Dielectric modeling of ESKAPE pathogens is validated by dielectrophoresis (DEP) experiments in the range 100 kHz to 15 MHz at a fixed 6 Vpp. A unique crossover frequency (f_x0) is observed for each ESKAPE pathogen due to the differences in their morphological and electrical properties. Findings The ESKAPE pathogens have crossover frequencies of 11–11.2 MHz (EF), 6–6.05 MHz (SA), 7–7.10 MHz (KP), 6.1–6.15 MHz (AB), 10–10.06 MHz (PA) and 9–9.10 MHz (EA), respectively. The observed crossover frequency agrees with the 2-shell structure model of ESKAPE pathogens. Identification of ESKAPE based on their electrical response enables real-time detection in medical diagnosis and waterborne pathogen detection. Originality/value The application of input frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 15 MHz at a constant 6 Vpp generated distinct frequency-response profiles for each ESKAPE pathogen, which can be used for ESKAPE pathogen detection in various biomedical applications.