A remoção do biofilme uso de aerossóis de dióxido de carbono sem a purga de azoto

Summary

Biofilms on surfaces can be effectively and rapidly removed by using a periodic jet of carbon dioxide aerosols without a nitrogen purge.

Abstract

Biofilms can cause serious concerns in many applications. Not only can they cause economic losses, but they can also present a public health hazard. Therefore, it is highly desirable to remove biofilms from surfaces. Many studies on CO₂ aerosol cleaning have employed nitrogen purges to increase biofilm removal efficiency by reducing the moisture condensation generated during the cleaning. However, in this study, periodic jets of CO₂ aerosols without nitrogen purges were used to remove Pseudomonas putida biofilms from polished stainless steel surfaces. CO₂ aerosols are mixtures of solid and gaseous CO₂ and are generated when high-pressure CO₂ gas is adiabatically expanded through a nozzle. These high-speed aerosols were applied to a biofilm that had been grown for 24 hr. The removal efficiency ranged from 90.36% to 98.29% and was evaluated by measuring the fluorescence intensity of the biofilm as the treatment time was varied from 16 sec to 88 sec. We also performed experiments to compare the removal efficiencies with and without nitrogen purges; the measured biofilm removal efficiencies were not significantly different from each other (t-test, p > 0.55). Therefore, this technique can be used to clean various bio-contaminated surfaces within one minute.

Introduction

Biofilms are complex bacterial community structures in which bacterial cells are embedded within self-produced matrices of extracellular polymeric substances, held together, and protected from the external environment. Biofilms can present a public health risk and cause economic losses because they can form on various surfaces, including medical implant materials and devices, food processing equipment, and heat exchangers. In fact, biofilms have been found to be associated with 65% of all bacterial infectious diseases in humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention¹.

Autoclaves and disinfectants such as chlorine have generally been used for the inactivation of biofilms. However, the use of an autoclave is limited for surfaces that can neither withstand high temperature steam nor be placed into the autoclave. Disinfectants are not suitable for surfaces sensitive to chemical treatment or prone to collecting toxic oxidation products². In addition, the biofilm should not only be inactivated, but also removed in order to prevent the attachment of new cells onto the surface, thereby forming a new biofilm³. However, it is difficult to remove biofilms using methods based on viscous fluid shear because the flow velocity near the surface is almost zero and the shear force usually cannot overcome the adhesive forces of micron- and submicron-sized substances. Moreover, the biofilm matrix is known to act as a physical and chemical barrier¹.

Many physical and mechanical techniques have been developed to remove biofilms from surfaces, including ultrasonic vibration¹, electric currents⁴, laser irradiation⁵, and high-pressure water sprays⁶. Each technique has its own pros and cons. Ultrasonic vibration and electric current can be used to control biofilm formation; however, they require a particular configuration and conductive surfaces, respectively, requiring additional shear stress^{1, 4}. Laser irradiation can be applied to a limited area and to hard surfaces; however, some live and dead cells remain on the surface⁵. High-pressure water sprays effectively remove biofilms; however, their high momentum can cause damage to soft substrates⁶.

Biofilm removal using CO₂ aerosols has been previously proposed. It has shown promising results, with high removal efficiencies within a short time^7-11. CO₂ aerosols are generated by adiabatic expansion of a high-pressure CO₂ gas through a nozzle, and they are applied to the surfaces contaminated with a biofilm. This cleaning technique utilizes the momentum transfer of solid CO₂ particles and the solvent action of the melted CO₂ liquids, followed by the aerodynamic shear force of the CO₂ gas¹². Compared with high-pressure N₂ gas jets, CO₂ aerosol jets at the same stagnation pressure are much more effective in removing E. coli biofilms⁷. Moreover, although the momentum of the solid CO₂ that is delivered to the bacteria is considerably high, the momentum of the total aerosol jet applied to the solid surface is substantially lower than that of water jets. Therefore, damage-free cleaning is possible using this CO₂ aerosol technique.

In this protocol, periodic jets of CO₂ aerosols without nitrogen purges were used to remove Pseudomonas putida biofilms from a polished stainless steel surface. In fact, nitrogen purges have been used in many CO₂ aerosol studies to increase the removal efficiency by reducing the moisture condensation generated during the cleaning, even though heating with a hot plate or infrared lamps and employing dry boxes have also been adopted¹². The surface biofilm formation and the optimized cleaning procedures are described below. The removal efficiency was evaluated by measuring the fluorescence intensity of the biofilm on the surface.

Protocol

1. Preparação de Superfície para formação de biofilme Corte 1 mm de espessura 304 chapas de aço inoxidável em chips (10 × 10 mm 2) com um cortador mecânico. Executar a limpeza ultra-sónica das fichas em acetona, metanol, e água desionizada (DI) sequencialmente água durante 10 min cada. Usar um recipiente resistente a solventes, feita de substâncias tais como vidro, para remover a contaminação orgânica. Lave as batatas fritas com água de fluxo DI para 3-5 seg. </…

Representative Results

CO 2 aerossóis foram usadas para remover o P. putida biofilmes de superfícies SUS304 (Figura 1). A maior parte das superfícies foram cobertas com o biofilme, após 24 h de crescimento. A maior parte do biofilme foi removido utilizando o CO 2 aerossóis (Figura 2). Como esperado, a Figura 3 mostra um aumento na eficiência de remoção do biofilme como o CO 2 tempo de tratamento de aerossol aumentou. Para o tempo de tratamento…

Discussion

Previously, we conducted optimization studies on CO₂ gas pressure, jet angle, and distance to the solid surface in CO₂ aerosol cleaning⁷. Unlike our previous studies, in the present study, a nitrogen purge was not included in the aerosol (Figure 1). Moreover, 304 stainless steel was used in this protocol, since it is one of the most common stainless steels and is widely used in the food industry. The polished surface is beneficial for fluorescence analysis because of a un…

Materials

304 stainless steel	Steelni (South Korea)		Polished and diced ones
Ultrasonic cleaner	Branson (USA)	5510E-DTH
Luria-Bertani (LB)	Becton, Dickinson and Company (USA)	244620	500 g
Agar	Becton, Dickinson and Company (USA)	214010	500 g
6-well culture plate	SPL Life Sciences (South Korea)	32006
Ammonium acetate buffer	Sigma-Aldrich (USA)	667404	10 mM
Dual gas unit	Applied Surface Technologies (USA)	K6-10DG	One nozzle for CO2 gas & 8 nozzles for N2 gas
SYTO9	Thermo Fissher Scientific (USA)	Invitrogen	Excitaion: 480 nm Emission: 500 nm
Epifluorescence microscope	Nikon (Japan)	Eclipse 80i
40× objective lens	Nikon (Japan)	Plan Fluor	NA: 0.75
CCD camera	Photometrics (USA)	Cool SNAP HQ2	Monochrome