American Association for Aerosol Research - Abstract Submission

AAAR 36th Annual Conference
October 16 - October 20, 2017
Raleigh Convention Center
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

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Collection of Air Samples for Improved Detection of Microbes onboard the International Space Station

Andrew Page, DAVID ALBURTY, Michael Hornback, Stephanie Cantrell, InnovaPrep LLC

     Abstract Number: 654
     Working Group: Bioaerosols

Abstract
Protecting the ISS crew from microbial contaminants is of great importance. Bacterial and fungal contamination of air has the potential to cause sickness and to impact onboard experiments. The development of a rapid way to determine when microbial contamination events occur through the use of low-power, high-efficiency bioaerosol sampling is presented here. Preliminary work in a ground-based bioaerosol laboratory compared high volume dry gelatin filters and low volume electret filters, and demonstrated that the low volume electret filters in combination with rapid elution using a carbonated surfactant buffer provided comparable effectiveness to the gelatin filters. The effectiveness of low volume electret bioaerosol sampling in this study was the improved viability of aerosolized E. coli, with an average overall efficiency of 37% viability following a 5 minute collection at 14 liters per minute. Elution resulted in average sample volumes of 4.9 mL, resulting in a concentration factor of 5.4 (CFU/mL)/(CFU/Lair). The gelatin filters preserved an average of 11% viability at 100 LPM, and were dissolved in 10 mL of water, giving a concentration factor of 5.6.