ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Amira Hassan Al-abdalall1 , Sarah Abdullah Al-dakheel2 and
Hmidah Abdulhadi Al-Abkari1
1Department of Biology, Imam Abdurrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
2Department of Physics, Imam Abdurrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
J. Pure Appl. Microbiol., 2019, 13 (4): 2383-2388 | Article Number: 5694
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.13.4.54 | © The Author(s). 2019
Received: 02/06/2019 | Accepted: 06/07/2019 | Published: 26/12/2019
Abstract

Several bacteria exist in the air that pass through the ducts of air-conditioning systems. This study aimed to determine the effect of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) on six bacterial isolates (Serratia liquefaciens, Bacillus pumilus, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus lentus, Bacillus subtilis, and Oligella ureolytica) from the in-duct of an air-conditioning system. Bacterial species were exposed to UVGI with a wavelength of 264 nm for different durations. The exposed samples were then cultured and evaluated for growth. Growth was evaluated based on the colony-forming units, and the number of bacterial cells was estimated using spectrophotometry. Thereafter, the susceptibility value (Z value) to the UVGI was calculated for each bacterium. Each bacterium showed a different Z value under the same UVGI conditions, depending on the gram characteristics of the bacterium. The findings confirmed that UVGI is a potent technique for reducing the growth rate of multiple species of bacteria isolated from air-conditioning systems and this reduction depends on the structure of the bacteria (gram +ve and gram -ve) as well as exposure time. UV lamps can be placed in air-conditioning ducts to reduce or prevent the transmission of bacteria into the environment.

Keywords

Ultraviolet Radiation, bacteria, susceptibility, Air-Conditioning System.

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© The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.