The contamination of water resources with biological and chemical pollutants could have long term negative effects on aquatic ecosystems and human health. Current pollutant neutralization methods for environmental remediation involve the use of adsorbent materials and chemical degradation. However, these methods have several deficiencies, including slow /adsorption degradation rates, and localized activity due to limited spatial displacement based on diffusion.<br/>Here, I will present the development of self-propelled biohybrid microrobots, employing marine rotifers as their engine, named “rotibot”, and demonstrate their practical utility and advantages for environmental remediation. Functionalized microbeads have been attached electrostatically within the rotifer mouth and aggregated inside their inner lip. The reactive particles confined around the rotifer’s lip are thus exposed to a high flow rate of the pollutant solution, resulting in dramatically accelerated decontamination processes, without external mixing or harmful fuels. Theoretical simulations, modeling the greatly enhanced fluid dynamic associated with such built-in mixing effect, correlated well with the experimental observations.<br/>The rotibot thus proved to be an effective, versatile and robust dynamic microcleaning platform for removing diverse environmental pollutants. Microbeads functionalized with lysozyme and organophosphorus hydrolase enzymes were shown extremely useful for enzymatic biodegradation of E. coli and the nerve agent methyl paraoxon, respectively, while ligand (meso-2,3-dimercaptosuccinic acid) modified beads for chemical adsorption of heavy metals in solution.<br/>Rotifer-based biohybrid microrobots hold considerable promise as self-propelling dynamic pumps for diverse large-scale environmental remediation applications.

Use of rotifers as self-propelling biohybrid microcleaners

2019 Fall National Meeting

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