Publication date: Sep 15, 2025
To monitor infectious airborne microorganisms (bioaerosols) such as SARS-CoV-2 (the COVID-19-causing agent), they should first be transferred to a liquid. Rapid bioaerosol monitoring should minimize mechanical damage to the samples and maintain high collection efficiency. This study presents a gentle airborne bacterial collection method. First, airborne bacteria were subjected to an aerosol coating of ferrofluid for magnetization and bovine serum albumin to reduce damage to the bacteria during coating. Second, the coated bacteria were collected using an electromagnetic air sampler. Finally, the highly enriched bacterial samples were flushed with a liquid. Our aerosol-coating electromagnetic air sampling system (ACEMASS) showed considerably higher bacterial recovery (8389 %) than the SKC BioSampler (1925 %, one of the most widely used commercial bioaerosol samplers). ACEMASS maintained high bacterial collection efficiencies (8294 %) for all air sampling flow rates (610 L/min) in the laboratory, providing highly enriched samples for qPCR detection (240-fold higher concentrations than collected using the SKC BioSampler). ACEMASS also provided colony-countable samples (4. 0 CFU/mL) even in low-bioaerosol environments (20 CFU/m air), where the SKC BioSampler failed to produce colonies.
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | IDO | bacteria |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Medical air |
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 |
| disease | IDO | colony |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Human Serum Albumin |