Scenario‐Based Evaluation of Commercially Available Cleaning Robots for Collection of Bacillus Spores from Environmental Surfaces. Issue 2 (March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lee, Sang Don; Calfee, M. Worth; Mickelsen, Leroy; Clayton, Matt; Touati, Abderrahmane
• Is Part Of: Remediation. Volume 24:Issue 2(2014)
• Page Start: 123
• Page End: 133
• Publication Date: 2014-03
• Subjects: Sanitary engineering -- Periodicals; 628
• DOI: 10.1002/rem.21388
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1051-5658

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>The cleaning robots, a vacuum‐based robot (R2) and a wetted‐wipe‐based robot (R4), were evaluated in this study to determine their effectiveness for sampling <italic>Bacillus atrophaeus</italic> spores. The tests were designed to evaluate the benefit of robot sampling on large areas with two different contamination scenarios: a high‐concentration, low spatial extent contamination (hot spot) and a low concentration, high spatial extent contamination (widely dispersed). The hot spot tests were conducted with the high spore contamination (approximately 10⁷ colony forming units [CFUs]) on a limited area (30.5 cm × 30.5 cm), 2 percent of the entire test. The widely dispersed tests were conducted with approximately 0.1 CFUs/cm² for floor laminate and approximately 10 CFUs/cm² for carpet surfaces. The widely dispersed tests distributed spores across the test surface and covered approximately 40 percent of the entire test area. The test results showed that both robots successfully sampled a large quantity of spores from carpet and floor laminate surfaces for both test scenarios. Robot performance is discussed in the context of currently used surface sampling methods. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.*</p> </abstract>