Articles
  • Rapid quantification of viable spore used in healing concrete cracks by a simple spectrophotometric method

  • Jinlong Zhanga,b,c, Jingkun Lub, Bing Liuc,d, Qiuyue Liub, Fan Jinb, Miaojun Zhangb, Yerong Liub,c, Yujun Songb, Chenhui Dongb, Wanyi Zhangb, Ningxu Hanc, Xu Deng b,* and Feng Xinga,c,*

  • aKey Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, Harbin 150086, P.R. China
    bShenzhen Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresource and Eco-environmental Science, College of Life Sciences and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, P.R. China
    cGuangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Durability for Marine Civil Engineering; College of Civil Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, P.R. China
    dShenzhen Institute of Information Technology, Shenzhen 518172, P.R. China

Abstract

Quantification of viable spores is a time taking task due to the lack of rapid, efficient and accurate methods. This study presented a simple spectrophotometric method for the detection of viable spores based on spore’s property of losing refractivity during the germination process. By comparison of the results obtained by both spectrophotometric method and colony counting method, a good linear correlation (R2 = 0.99) was achieved between viable spore concentration and OD loss under appropriate conditions. To avoid interference from ungerminable spores and vegetative cells, a turbidity complementation strategy of keeping the initial concentration of spore suspensions at the same and relatively lower level was required. The calibration equation developed could be used to predict the viable spore yield produced in a series of fermentation experiments. The experimental results proved that this novel spectrophotometric method was sensitive, rapid, and easy to perform compared to conventional colony counting method.


Keywords: Self-healing concrete, Bacillus, Spore germination, Colony forming unit, OD loss, Viability

This Article

  • 2019; 20(S1): 63-69

    Published on Jul 20, 2019

  • Received on Dec 9, 2018
  • Revised on Jan 11, 2019
  • Accepted on Jan 11, 2019

Correspondence to

  • Xu Deng b,* and Feng Xinga,c,*

  • bShenzhen Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresource and Eco-environmental Science, College of Life Sciences and Oceanography, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, P.R. China
    cGuangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Durability for Marine Civil Engineering; College of Civil Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, P.R. China
    Tel : +86-755-2653-5435

  • E-mail: dengxu@szu.edu.cn, xingf@szu.edu.cn