Pulsed-UV disinfection of Polyvinyl alcohol-based films inoculated with Bacillus cereus endospores.

Abstract

Pulsed UV light (PUV) is an emergent non-thermal technology widely used to disinfect food, liquids and surfaces through short but high intensity pulses of polychromatic light (range between 200nm - 1100nm). The PUV is proved to be at least 6 times more efficient against bacteria than continuous UV light due to the peak of power in a short time delivered by the system (Fine and Gervais, 2004). Bacillus cereus is a food intoxicant gram-positive bacterium, rod-shaped and endospore forming. Thus, the elimination of bacterial spores is crucial and challenging through the health industry. Some studies had already shown the efficacy of PUV in Bacillus cereus disinfection on food, liquid sources and surfaces (Rowan, 2019), being this the first study that relates B. cereus disinfection of a polymer and drug candidate via Pulsed UV-light system. This study aims to determine Pulsed UV disinfection efficacy on PVA films with different compositions and analyse how the composition affects efficiency of the process at different fluence values, plus structural changes that the system might cause to the polymer.