Abstract
The aim of the work reported in this paper is to develop a new method for micromachining of metals. This work demonstrates the potential use of bacterial culture supernatant for the machining of metals. The change in mass of various metals in bacterial culture supernatant was used to quantify the material removal rate. The promising results of present study revealed that the bacterial culture supernatant can be used as a replacement of the toxic FeCl 3 , currently employed for chemical machining. Also this research is important to optimize the formation of patterned copper films. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.