Water Quality and Total Microbial Load: A Double-Threshold Identification Procedure Intended for Space Applications.

ABSTRACT: During longer-lasting future space missions, water renewal by ground-loaded supplies will become increasingly expensive and unmanageable for months. Space exploration by self-sufficient spacecrafts is thus demanding the development of culture-independent microbiological methods for in-flight water monitoring to counteract possible contamination risks. In this study, we aimed at evaluating total microbial load data assessed by selected early-warning techniques with current or promising perspectives for space applications (i.e., HPC, ATP-metry, qPCR, flow cytometry), through the analysis of water sources with constitutively different contamination levels (i.e., chlorinated and unchlorinated tap waters, groundwaters, river waters, wastewaters). Using a data-driven double-threshold identificat

SUBMITTER: Amalfitano S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6291452 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature