Rodents should be housed with bedding because it allows foraging, burrowing, digging, and nest building
and absorbs urine and feces. Moreover, the type of bedding selected can influence animal wellbeing and
experimental results. Bedding is evaluated for absorbency, biodegradability, toxicity, dust, palatability,
comfort, cost, availability, damage to cage washers, and effect on research. Several bedding materials
are available for rodents, including corncob, wood chips, paper products, and grass fiber pellets.
Untreated softwood bedding can affect rodent metabolism, and the aromatic hydrocarbons of cedar
shavings can induce hepatic microsomal enzymes and cytotoxicity. Aspen bedding is associated with
sneezing and respiratory pathology in rats. In a study comparing aspen shavings, virgin pulp, recycled
paper, corncob, reclaimed wood pulp, virgin cellulose, pine shavings, and hardwood chips, ammonia was
detectable last in a corncob. Rats have been shown to prefer paper bedding to corncob; however, corncob
has been used to minimize dampness and ammonia concentrations. Mice prefer material suitable for nest
building such as cloth, cotton, or paper. Although corncob beddisi n~ogt; t erile material, it is a common
bedding choice due to its absorbency, biodegradability, and ability t antral ammonia levels.
~
COMe.i£TE"
PROVISIONAL The following specification particularly
The following specification describes the describes the invention and the manner in
invention which is to be performed
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4:DESCRIPTION (Description shall start from next stage)
Description
Presently, Corncob disinfection is carried out using the incineration method only. For sterilization and
disinfection, the legacy technology was used such as an autoclave, ETO etc. these all have huge
limitations. However, there are snags in the existing recommended procedures:
As of Now, there is no specific method for Corncob disinfection/sterilization, therefore,
Disinfection/sterilization method proposed here has no competition as of now.
The microwave is one of the recommended procedures for this pretreatment at the point of
generation. The sectors that under the preview of biomedical waste includes hospitals, nursing homes,
clinics, dispensaries, veterinary institutions, animal houses, pathological laboratories, blood banks,
AYUSH hospitals, clinical establishments, research or educational institutions, health camps, medical or
surgical camps, vaccination camps, blood donation camps, first aid rooms of schools, forensic
laboratories and research labs. Thus, the present invention has great commercial value.
The present invention is a Microwave based method for the disinfection/sterilization of Corncob.
There is an urgent need to develop appropriate and alternative technology for Corncob sterilization
and disinfection/ decontamination for the safer use and disposal. Microwave being green and low-cost
technology provides an efficient and quick solution to the Corncob disinfection/sterilization process. It
has been shown in previous studies that Microwaves have effective microbicidal and sporicidal
properties. The traditional method of conductive heating using steam and hot-air, or even radiation
heating, is a slow and inefficient method for transferring energy into the system since it depends on
convection currents and on the thermal conductivity of the various materials that must be penetrated.
This generally results in the temperature of the vessel being higher than that of the stuffing. In
contrast, Microwave chemistry is based on the efficient heating of materials by microwave dielectric
heating effects.
Microwave dielectric heating depends on the ability of a specific material to absorb microwave energy
and convert it into heat. Since, Microwaves 10 are electromagnetic waves that consist of an electric
and magnetic field component, substances such as water which possess a dipole moment to generate
heat when irradiated with microwaves. When exposed to microwave frequencies, the dipoles of the
water align with the applied electric field. As the field oscillates, the dipole field attempts to realign
itself with the alternating electric field and, in the process, energy is lost in the form of heat through
molecular friction and dielectric loss. Thus, microwave irradiation produces efficient internal heating
(in core volumetric heating) by direct coupling of microwave energy with the molecules within the
microbes or the medium harboring them. The present invention is designed to work in Microwave
equipment with water sprinkling mechanism. Therefore, Microwaves penetrates the Corncob
uniformly and generate heat directly in the inner core of the Corncob piles. The present method of the
invention uses a Microwave based disinfection device with a water sprinkling system and a single
magnetron (OptiMaser, l.SkW, 30 lit) for disinfection/ sterilization of Corncob.
At the start of disinfection cycle, Corncob containing bags were sprinkled with water and followed by
exposure of 2.45 GHz Microwaves (loo·c, 30 min). The average time takes for the Corncob
disinfection/sterilization cycle in OptiMaser™ (Microwave based disinfection device) was observed to
be 60 min. This exposure did not cause any changes in physical properties in the Corncob. A
disinfection efficacy of 9 log reduction was achieved for heat-resistant bacterial spores in the top row.
Acceptable disinfection efficacy of bacterial spores (4 log reduction) was observed in the bottom row.
A self-contained biological indicator having 106B. atrophaeus spores was used for monitoring the
disinfection process.
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