Quartz Crystal Microbalance for real time in situ study of adsorption/desorption/degradation of (bio)polymers and mineralisation.
The achieved data depend on adsorbed mass and the viscosity of solution and the adsorbed biofilm. Thus is it easy to determine whether a film is relatively stiff or viscous, although since the response also can depend on the coupled mass (e.g. in hygroscopic
biofilms) it is not straightforward to get true values of the mass of the adsorbed biofilms. Modelling of data is necessary and also to get absolute values comparison with other techniques (such as
ellipsometry) is vital. The equipment can be used to study for example (the kinetics of) deposition during layer-by-layer assembly, protein adsorption, and temperature response in viscoelastic properties of thermosensitive polymers.
