Decontamination using Chlorine Dioxide Disinfectant with Adjuvants Verses Hydrogen-Peroxide and Pentapotassium Disinfectants on Farm Equipment

Abstract

Agricultural machinery and farm equipment are potential sources of infectious material that can lead to the contamination and spread of diseases if proper action isn’t taken. Two stage decontamination methods, involving power washing followed by disinfectant applications, are needed to clean farm equipment, agricultural transport vehicles, and storage units. The field experiments confirm that pressure washing surfaces is an extremely important step in enhancing spore efficacy. Log10 reduction values were 5.45 and 2.90 for disinfectant applications with and without power washing, respectively. Both experiments show that the commercial chlorine dioxide disinfectant Electro-Biocide was an effective disinfectant alone and when mixed with adjuvants. Increasing the concentration of some tested adjuvants resulted in more spores being removed or killed, however this was not true for all adjuvants tested in these two experiments.