All Purpose

Posted on Sunday, February 20th, 2011 at 8:06 am

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How can I test how well an all purpose cleaner kills bacteria?

I want to test whether my home brew all purpose cleaner kills bacteria as good as lysol or any other cleaner. What do I need to grow bacteria in a control environment and test each cleaner?

It is impossible to get a comprehensive source of bacteria since you asked the question "what do i need to do to grow bacteria".
Well bacteria grows all around us and where would you use your cleaner, would be the best place to test it. Assuming it is your house.

What you need to do is try to find Agar plates (ask biologists). At least a good number to have a good test population. About 6-8 test plates per cleaner would give you confidence level (at your amateur biologist level). More is always better if you have the resources/time/willingness.
These agar plates will have to be cast in identical shallow dishes, so that by inverting them the surface of the agar gel will be in contact with the surface you wish to test (floor, table wherever). They should be cast with the same batch of agar medium to ensure consistency.

Lets say you want to test two cleaners against your home-brew. E.g Dettol and Lysol. You will be about 6-8 X 4 which is about 24 (say we use 6 plates). Use 6 plates because you will be testing 6 locations in which you will be using your cleaner. Why the extra 6 sets of plates? This will be your control group. To show you what it will be like if no cleaner was used at all.

Pick 6 locations all over your house preferably one that has alot of human traffic (flat and large too) E.g room table, room floor, kitchen floor, toilet floor.

Separate 3 spots in each of the locations (slightly larger than the size of the agar plate) where you will evenly spray or apply the same amount of each cleaner (in the way you would normally use it) using a different cleaner each time. Seperate a 4th spot in each location too, where you will not spray anything on this control spot. (this step is important)

Try to get the areas to be as close to each other as possible. But take care when applying the cleaners to ensure the chemicals only stay within their respective spots. And that no cleaner enters the control spot.

After applying, wait for the cleaners to dry up (in the way you would when you normally use it). When it is dry press an agar plate to each of the 4 spots. Use a different agar plate for each spot Do not press too hard but also ensure that the entire surface of the plate comes into contact with the cleaned spot.
Label the plates according to the location in the house, and cleaner used, or if no cleaner was used (control).

At the end of this experiment you will have 6 plates for lysol, 6 plates for dettol, 6 plates for your homebrew and 6 plates for control. From all 6 locations in your house.

You can culture these plates by leaving them on your desk (if you wish to) or by incubating them in professional lab incubator. For optimal and fastest growth, the ideal temperature should be 34 or 35 degrees celcius. It should not be higher than 37 to be safe. Bacteria will just grow slower at lower temperatures, perhaps 2 days at 24-26 degrees C. Try to avoid temperatures below 21 degrees.

Regardless of growth temperature, you should check the plates after 1 day to ensure nothing really really weird has happened to them.

After incubation, you can compare the plates with each other by grouping them into their respective locations. If there is no growth on the control plate (where no cleaner was used), either you have an impossibly STERILE house, Faulty agar medium, or fault tests proceedings. You can compare the difference lysol, dettol makes from the control plate. And from there compare the effectiveness between your cleaners.

The control plate is usually OVERGROWN, there will be a mini alien rainforest within your plate and some of these are actually spore producing fungus, So do handle with care.

It will be an interesting peek into how dirty your surroundings actually are. Don't worry i've tried the test on my clothes. =D

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