Construção de uma microbalança de cristal de quartzo prototificada para análise bioativa e gravimétrica

Abstract

The objective of this work was to develop a low-cost prototype of a Quartz Crystal Microbalance - MCQ, useful as a teaching tool, capable of performing micro gravimetric and interaction analysis between bioactive molecules. The use of unmarked biomolecular analysis equipment is not common in the teaching of biomedical sciences, biotechnology and other areas, since such equipment is expensive and has industrial or commercial characteristics that sometimes exceed those necessary for teaching. The focus of this work was the research of low-cost electromechanical components, but which resulted in an equipment that had reproducible results. ANOVA demonstrates that the equipment responded adequately to pre produced gravimetric patterns, producing a satisfactory regression model, [F (1, 16) = 382.487, p <0.001; R2 = 0.959]. In comparison with the cost of commercial equipment, the model developed had a cost 28 times lower. For biomolecular analyzes or a prototype capable of identifying the antigen-antibody interaction in real time, as well as at the time when the antigen-antibody complex was undone. The equipment was designed to be built using common electronic materials and with a simple computational language. The results of the performance tests and the fundamental characteristics were successful, showing the appropriate applicability of the MCQ as a teaching tool or even basic research.