Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. 999077, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon 999077, Hong Kong SAR, China.
J Hazard Mater. 2024 Oct 5;478:135518. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.135518. Epub 2024 Aug 14.
The solid culture method for measuring the efficiency of ultraviolet (UV) disinfection of airborne bacteria is time-consuming, typically taking 12-48 h. To expedite such experiments, this study proposed a liquid culture method assisted by adenosine triphosphate (ATP) analysis, as a liquid culture is faster than a solid culture, and measurement of ATP does not require waiting for visible colonies to form. Escherichia coli (E. coli) was used as the experimental bacterium. This study first compared the log reduction of bacteria in liquid as measured by the proposed method and by the traditional solid culture method. The minimum liquid culture time was determined for different bacterial concentration ranges. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed method was validated by UV disinfection experiments on airborne bacteria. The results indicated that the proposed method measured a similar log reduction to that of the solid culture method in liquid experiments. The minimum liquid culture time for E. coli in 10-10 colony forming units (CFU)/mL was 2 h. The validation experiments demonstrated that the proposed method is capable of measuring the UV disinfection efficiency of airborne bacteria. The proposed method can accelerate laboratory experiments on UV disinfection of airborne bacteria, which in turn can support the effective design and utilization of UV disinfection in real life.
空气中细菌的紫外线（UV）消毒效率的固体培养方法耗时较长，通常需要 12-48 小时。为了加快此类实验，本研究提出了一种液体培养方法，并辅助使用三磷酸腺苷（ATP）分析，因为液体培养比固体培养更快，并且测量 ATP 不需要等待可见菌落的形成。大肠杆菌（E. coli）被用作实验细菌。本研究首先比较了通过提出的方法和传统的固体培养方法测量的液体中细菌的对数减少。确定了不同细菌浓度范围的最小液体培养时间。最后，通过对空气中细菌的 UV 消毒实验验证了该方法的可行性。结果表明，该方法在液体实验中测量的对数减少与固体培养方法相似。10-10 菌落形成单位（CFU）/mL 大肠杆菌的最小液体培养时间为 2 小时。验证实验表明，该方法能够测量空气中细菌的 UV 消毒效率。该方法可以加速空气中细菌的 UV 消毒的实验室实验，从而支持 UV 消毒在现实生活中的有效设计和利用。
