Abstract View
Performance Validation of Bio-Particle Counter by Using Inkjet Aerosol Generator
KENJIRO IIDA, Hiromu Sakurai, AIST
Abstract Number: 153
Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract
This study introduces a method to verify the counting capability of a bio-particle counter (BPC). A BPC counts and detects biological particles by analyzing the intensity of fluoresce signals from a sampled particle. The ratio of biological counts to total counts is called viable fraction (VF), and the VF and counting efficiencies (CE) should be two of the parameters to be tested in the verification experiment. Inkjet aerosol generator (IAG) is used to generate monodisperse test particles which are surrogate of biological particles. The test particles contain biological fluorophores in a trace amount, and the particle diameter is adjusted by the mass of lactose monohydrate in the test particles. In this study three biological fluorophores (tryptophan, NADH, and riboflavin) were added to lactose monohydrate (LM) particles, and these test particles are delivered to BioTrak (TSI Inc.). The mass of three fluorophores in the IAG-generated LM particles were optimized to maximize the VF measured by the BioTrak. After finding the optimum combination of the fluorophores the VF monotonically increased from 17% to 84% while the particle size was increased from 3.0 to 8.2 um. The experimental results validate that the IAG can generate test particles which a BioTrak can identify them as biological particles. Therefore, IAG can be used to periodically verify the counting capability of a BPC. Proposed method is practical since it does not involve the use of microorganisms and therefore does not raise any biosafety-concerns.