Air needs to be tested microbiologically in order to:
• Control the microbiological cleanliness of air in production and storage chambers!
• Identification of contamination sources!
• Analysis of air filters' efficiency!
• Analysis of microbiological contamination of air in rooms and chambers equipped with air conditioning and ventilation!
The following might constitute sources of contamination during a technological process:
- raw material
- technological line
- human factor
- packages
- air
Taking into consideration costs generated by an inappropriate microbiological quality of products it is worth to:
- monitor the most critical sources of contamination by regular testing of raw material and cleanliness of technological line,
- carry out a periodic evaluation of additional sources of contamination including the microbiological tests of air.
Our air analysis covers:
- microbiological testing of air towards: the general number of bacteria yeasts and moulds, coli group bacteria,
- collecting samples of air using the sedimentation method,
- air sampling using the volumetric method with help of Termofischer sampler
Advantages of the volumetric method:
- sample's representativeness
- elimination of air swirling influence upon the result
- speed of sampling
- possibility of evaluating both clean environments (large volume samples) as well as contaminated environments
- sensitivity of the method
Test progress:
- sampling of a certain volume of air is conducted with a sampler.
- Microorganisms present in air cover the agar medium specific for a particular type of a microorganism.
- incubation of media according to testing methodology for particular bacteria groups
- reading of results
- statistical processing of results
- analysis of results' compliance with a client's criteria.
Air sampling methods used in the volumetric method:
- Single sampling of 50 , 100 , 200, 1000 l of air,
- Sampling of a volume of air in a given time span i.e. 200l in 50l intervals,
- Possibility of conducting in clean rooms - automatic sampling after a given delay time allowing for the device to work without an operator
Advantages of the sedimentation method:
the analysis of air pollution on surface contamination on a given area.
Monitoring of air cleanliness:
We recommend its introduction in order to eliminate possible threats to the technological process with microbiological pollutants present in air. Such a monitoring along with the evaluation of results using control cards would allow for determination of a safe level of pollution acceptable in Your technological process as well as quick decision making in case of an appearance of a threat. The apparatus used for sampling has been validated and its accuracy is checked periodically by the producer.
The process of sampling is covered by our laboratory's program of quality assurance:
- testing of blind sample - aiming at the possibility of contamination of agar dishes with microorganisms during manipulations involved with operating the apparatus and the cleanliness of the device itself.
- testing of parallel samples - to analyze the repeatability of the sampling process and a sample's representativeness.
A malfunctioning air conditioning and ventilation devices along with their incorrect maintenance may cause an increase in the microbiological contamination of air in production areas as well as in offices and conference halls causing hazard to people's health and compromising the technological process.
Air analysis in rooms enables the evaluation of microbiological contamination , state of devices and equipment and may also help in planning of conservation activities and their frequency.
