Project description:Mechanical energy–driven portable water disinfection has attracted attention for its electricity-free operation, but this approach generally faces bottlenecks such as a high mechanical activation threshold, energy dispersion, and low interfacial reaction efficiency, making it difficult to achieve rapid and stable pathogen inactivation in practical scenarios. Here we report a manually operated portable water disinfection system that can inactivate 99.9999% of V. cholerae within 1 minute and demonstrate broad-spectrum disinfection against bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. Amino-modified SiO₂ nanoparticles loaded with Au nanoparticles capture hydrated electrons and transfer them to the electret surface to generate localized nanoscale electric fields, which are further strengthened by hydrophobic fluorinated groups. This interfacial architecture not only promotes charge accumulation and transfer, but also leverages the intensified electric field to actively drive reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation at the solid–liquid–air interface, thereby markedly enhancing disinfection rate and efficacy compared with existing contact electrification–based disinfection technologies. Owing to its ease of operation, ourinterfacial electric-field-enhanced (IEFE) disinfection system is readily deployable in disaster relief and resource-constrained regions.
Project description:Many disinfection treatments can be adopted for controlling opportunistic pathogens in hospital water networks in order to reduce infection risk for immunocompromised patients. Each method has limits and strengths and it could determine modifications on bacterial community. The aim of our investigation was to study under real-life conditions the microbial community associated with different chemical (monochloramine, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide) and non-chemical (hyperthermia) treatments, continuously applied since many years in four hot water networks of the same hospital. Municipal cold water, untreated secondary, and treated hot water were analysed for microbiome characterization by 16S amplicon sequencing. Cold waters had a common microbial profile at genera level. The hot water bacterial profiles differed according to treatment. Our results confirm the effectiveness of disinfection strategies in our hospital for controlling potential pathogens such as Legionella, as the investigated genera containing opportunistic pathogens were absent or had relative abundances ≤1%, except for non-tuberculous mycobacteria, Sphingomonas, Ochrobactrum and Brevundimonas. Monitoring the microbial complexity of healthcare water networks through 16S amplicon sequencing is an innovative and effective approach useful for Public Health purpose in order to verify possible modifications of microbiota associated with disinfection treatments.
Project description:We report the transcriptomic changes in Salmonella Typhimurium exposed to sub-lethal sonophotocatalytic disinfection. The current data suggests that more than 120 genes are significantly expressed during the process. The genes associated with the flagellar assembly were found to be significantly up-regulated during the disinfection, which may have impacts on the phenotypic attributes of the bacteria.
Project description:In this study, we report the genome-wide expression profiles of hospital-acquired and community-acquired P. aeruignosa. The analysis of that provides crucial implications concerning the virulence determinants associated with the community-acquired diarrheagenic strain of P. aeruginosa
Project description:In this study we linked the biological end point of genomic DNA damage from our quantitative, comparative disinfection by-product (DBP) database, with toxicogenomic analysis using a Super Array RT2 Profiler™ PCR Array containing primers for 84 genes related to human DNA damage and repair and 84 genes whose expression level is indicative of stress and toxicity.