To guarantee safe supply of drinking water, there is a need for fast, sensitive and robust techniques for early warning of potentially pathogenic microorganisms. An optical measurement system has been developed to spectrally study the UVinduced autofluorescence from single microorganisms in a water flow. Particles in the flow are detected with a continuouswave laser whereby an ultraviolet laser pulse is fired and a spectrometer measures emitted fluorescence. Suspensions of Cryptosporidium parvum (Crypto), Bacillus atrophaeus (BG, a non-pathogenic simulant bacterial spore) and Escherichia coli (Ecoli), in distilled and tap water have been examined. The results from single particle measurements are compared to fluorescence emission spectra captured on suspensions with a fluorescence spectrometer and the strength and variability of single organism spectra, with respect to detection applications, is also investigated.
Rapid and selective detection of persistent, highly toxic liquids, such as low volatile chemical warfare agents (CWA) continues to be a desired capability, e.g. by first responders and military personnel. An already proven general technique for detection of bulk material is Raman spectroscopy. Utilizing UV excitation wavelengths offers advantages such as separation from fluorescence, solar blindness and a high Raman cross-section. In the UV region, however, there is usually a rapid decrease in penetration depth for most liquids as the wavelength becomes shorter, generally resulting in that a smaller volume is accessible for Raman scattered photons. While this effect is a drawback in terms of signal power at the detector it may also be beneficial as interfering light from the background surface can be strongly reduced or even absent. Herein, the use of Hadamard patterned (50% transmission) masks at the entrance plane of a spectrograph are investigated for the purpose of increasing the amount of Raman scattered light onto the detector compared to slit measurements. Decoded spectra from Hadamard measurements on scenes containing hazardous material, such as low volatile CWA and simulant chemicals, are compared with slit measurements.
There is a need for time efficient evaluation methods to discriminate between viable and dead bacterial spores. In this work, the potential to use the autofluorescence from spore suspensions for evaluation of spore deactivation processes is investigated. Bacillus thuringiensis and Bacillus anthracis ATCC 4229 spores were exposed to UV-radiation for deactivation and the fluorescence response was monitored at different radiation doses and the deactivation was evaluated via traditional bacterial incubation on agar culture plates. For excitation wavelengths of, e.g., 280 m and 330 nm, differences in the fluorescence response could be observed for different live:dead ratios.
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