Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Log reduction is a measure of how thoroughly a decontamination process reduces the concentration of a contaminant. It is defined as the common logarithm of the ratio of the levels of contamination before and after the process, so an increment of 1 corresponds to a reduction in concentration by a factor of 10.
Z-value is a term used in microbial thermal death time calculations. It is the number of degrees the temperature has to be increased to achieve a tenfold (i.e. 1 log 10 ) reduction in the D-value . The D-value of an organism is the time required in a given medium, at a given temperature, for a ten-fold reduction in the number of organisms.
In microbiology, in the context of a sterilization procedure, the D-value or decimal reduction time (or decimal reduction dose) is the time (or dose of an antimicrobial drug) required, at a given condition (e.g. temperature) or set of conditions, to achieve a one-log reduction, that is, to kill 90% of relevant microorganisms. [1]
Specialist companies will often advertise a certain log reduction, e.g., 6-log reduction or 99.9999% effective, instead of sterilization. This takes into consideration a phenomenon known as light and dark repair ( photoreactivation and base excision repair , respectively), in which a cell can repair DNA that has been damaged by UV light.
The target of reduction in canning is the 12-D reduction of C. botulinum, which means that processing time will reduce the amount of this bacteria by a factor of 10 12. The D R for C. botulinum is 0.21 minute (12.6 seconds). A 12-D reduction will take 2.52 minutes (151 seconds).
In water treatment practice, tables of the product C×t are used to calculate disinfection dosages. The calculated CT value is the product of the disinfectant residual (in mg/L) and the detention time (in minutes), through the section at peak hourly flow. [ 5 ]
(A log 10 reduction between 6 and 7 means that 1 bacterium out of 1 million (10 6) to 10 million (10 7) bacteria survive the treatment.) The Codex Alimentarius Code of Hygienic Practice for Milk notes that milk pasteurization is designed to achieve at least a 5 log 10 reduction of Coxiella burnetii. [48]
Microbes such as bacteria have been gaining resistance to antimicrobials they were previously susceptible to. [18] Usage of incompatible levels of antimicrobials provides the selective pressure that has driven the direction and evolution of resistance of bacterial pathogens. [19] This has been seen at sub-MIC levels of antibiotics. [20]