Characterizing Bacillus globigii as a Bacillus anthracis surrogate for wastewater treatment studies and bioaerosol emissions

This study characterized (BG) as a Sterne (BAS) surrogate for wastewater treatment-related studies of UV inactivation, adsorption onto powdered activated carbon (PAC), and bioaerosol emission. The inactivation of BG was faster than that of BAS in DI water (pseudo first-order rate constants of 0.065 and 0.016 min respectively) and in PBS solution (0.030 and 0.005 min respectively). BG was also removed more quickly than BAS by PAC adsorption in DI (0.07 and 0.05 min respectively) and in PBS (0.09 and 0.04 min respectively). In DI, BG aggregated more ( < 0.05) than BAS when the pH was 7 or greater but there were no statistically significant differences in NaCl solution. Spore aggregation was also studied with extended Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (XDLVO) models. Less than 1% of all spores were released as bioaerosols, and there was no significant difference ( > 0.05) in emission between BG and BAS. To the author's knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate that BG is a suitable surrogate for BAS for bioaerosol emissions, but a poor surrogate for both UV inactivation and PAC adsorption. These results can be used to understand the ability of BAS to act as a surrogate for BA Ames because of its genetic and morphological similarities with BAS.