Kinetic study of Aspergillus niger inactivation applying photocatalytic paint irradiated with UV-A

ZACARÍAS, SILVIA M.; MARTIN, DELFINA; BALLARI, MARÍA DE LOS MILAGROS

Cusco

Conferencia; 5th Iberoamerican Conference on Advanced Oxidation Technologies; 2022

The environmental fungi inactivation employing a photocatalytic paint was assessed for different UV irradiation flux and relative humidity (RH). The selected model microorganism was conidia of Aspergillus niger, that is a frequent environmental mold. In order to evaluate the photochemical inactivation of this kind of microorganism when they are exposed to UV radiation, a paint containing Rutile TiO2, non-photocatalytic, was also tested. The experimental data were fitted with a first order kinetic model in function of the viable conidia number for both, the photochemical and the photocatalytic inactivation processes. A significant influence of the photon flux and RH was observed for the conidia inactivation by the Photocatalytic paint. While no effect of the relative humidity was detected for the photochemical inactivation on the Rutile paint. Further kinetic analysis is needed to correlate the apparent kinetic constants determined in this work with the operating conditions of radiation flux and RH.