Exploring Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) for Water Quality Sensor's Anti-Biofouling Application: A New Direction for Acoustic Waves

Biofouling presents numerous challenges across various sectors, including aquaculture, agriculture, infrastructure, and medicine. The development of anti-biofouling techniques remains a significant challenge. In the water industry, biofouling on monitoring sensors substantially compromises the accuracy of measurements by interfering with sensors measuring ability. Biofouling also significantly increases the running costs by increasing the frequency of maintenance needed to keep sensors clean and accurate. Consequently, anti-biofouling techniques are widely employed to clean in-situ optical sensors, ensuring accurate measurements while minimizing overall system costs. The conventional approach for preventing biofouling from in-situ sensors typically involves the application of coatings, mechanical brushes, ultraviolet radiation, and ultrasonic waves, which possess distinct advantages and disadvantages contingent upon their application. The challenges associated with protecting the small windows of water quality sensors from biofouling over extended periods using current methods are either expensive or adversely affect the integrity of monitoring data. This study introduces a low-cost centimeter-scale high-frequency surface acoustic wave (SAW) device to protect the small windows of in-situ water quality sensors continuously from biofouling, functioning as an auxiliary anti-biofouling mechanism. The study found that this 16 MHz SAW device can mitigate the formation of biofilms by adhesive diatom strains CS-1664, CS-1665, and by planktonic algae CS-327 by approximately 95-99% in comparison to control conditions, functioning effectively as an anti-biofouling tool for itself and surrounding surfaces without adversely affecting aquatic organisms. The dimension and resonance frequency (RF) of the SAW device are also capable of being fabricated according to the area requiring cleaning. A miniaturized 16 MHz SAW device can sustain operation for prolonged periods up to a couple of months without maintenance, at a low cost and power consumption, providing a new anti-biofouling technology. This methodology aims to assist the Australian inland and coastal water quality monitoring system by reducing maintenance costs while simultaneously enhancing the longevity of sensors submerged in water for extended periods.