https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11154720/
This study investigated the efficacy of low-dose ozone microbubble
solution and conventional aqueous ozone as inactivation agents against
Tulane virus samples in water over a short period of time. Noroviruses
are the primary cause of foodborne illnesses in the US, and the development
of effective inactivation agents is crucial. Ozone has a high oxidizing ability
and naturally decomposes to oxygen, but it has limitations due to its low
dissolution rate, solubility, and stability. Ozone microbubbles have been
promising in enhancing inactivation, but little research has been done on
their efficacy against noroviruses. The study examined the influence of the
dissolved ozone concentration, inactivation duration, and presence of organic
matter during inactivation. The results showed that ozone microbubbles had
a longer half-life (14 ± 0.81 min) than aqueous ozone (3 ± 0.35 min). After 2,
10, and 20 min postgeneration, the ozone concentration of microbubbles
naturally decreased from 4 ppm to 3.2 ± 0.2, 2.26 ± 0.19, and 1.49 ± 0.23 ppm
and resulted in 1.43 ± 0.44, 0.88 ± 0.5, and 0.68 ± 0.53 log10 viral reductions,
respectively, while the ozone concentration of aqueous ozone decreased from
4 ppm to 2.52 ± 0.07, 0.43 ± 0.05, and 0.09 ± 0.01 ppm and produced 0.8 ± 0.28,
0.29 ± 0.41, and 0.16 ± 0.21 log10 reductions against Tulane virus, respectively
(p = 0.0526), suggesting that structuring of ozone in the bubbles over the applied
treatment conditions did not have a significant effect, though future study with
continuous generation of ozone microbubbles is needed
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This article demonstrates that aqueous ozone and ozone microbubbles produced
more than 1 log10 reduction against Tulane virus over a relatively short duration
of exposure, including in the presence of a relatively high organic load (FBS media).
After noncontinuous treatment of pregenerated disinfectants, aqueous ozone
produced an inactivation effect only in the first 2 min and ozone microbubbles
maintained the inactivation efficacy for 10 min. These results suggest that future
work investigating a continuous production of aqueous ozone or ozone microbubbles
over longer periods in aqueous applications relevant to foods implicated in norovirus
transmission could be of value. This study suggests that future work evaluating the
antiviral efficacy of ozone microbubbles against nonenveloped viruses in various
matrices, which has been hitherto underexplored, is warranted.
