Photocatalytic Inactivation Efficiencies of Dairy Bacteriophages in a Semi-pilot Scale Reactor

Abstract

In this work, the photocatalytic inactivation of phages contained in bioaerosols was investigated in a semi-pilot scale reactor designed and built in a previous work. A new nebulization method was studied to extend the stay time of phage particles in the air. Phage B1 (infective to Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC 8014) was nebulized into the reactor by 6 jet Collison nebulizer. Results demonstrated a good performance of this nebulizer. A decrease of phage counts of 2.9 order logs after 90 min of photocatalytic treatment was observed. For this phage, photonic and quantum inactivation efficiencies of 0.75x10^19 PFU/photon and 1.99x10^19 PFU/photon were obtained, respectively.