I need to perform toxicity testing on the byproducts of an electrochemical treatment for wastewater.
To test the effect on E. coli, I prepared serial dilutions of the overnight bacterial culture and had them interact (for 5 hours) with the same concentration treated wastewater in 50-50 diluted broth-treated wastewater. From the mixture, I took 0.1 ml and plated in LB-agar for a bacterial count.
My reasoning being that if the concentration of toxic compounds in the treated wastewater is somewhat effective (acting on, but not completely inhibiting the growth or killing off all the bacteria), the bacterial count would be lower than a negative control with diluted broth-sterile water.
Would this reasoning be sound or am i overlooking some aspect?
hi ,
her is article may be help you .
Article Use of the Replica-Plate Technique in Studies of Toxicity of...
Hello,
you just mention waste water without of a closer description, so from my point of view, you might take the following aspects in account:
Wastewater could contain a large amount of bacteriophages, which would lead to a false positive result in the described study design.
On the other hand, some waste water (especially from households) are usually highly contaminated by different bacteria, which could produce false negative results or overgrow your plate.
Maybe the ISO 11348 “Water quality -- Determination of the inhibitory effect of water samples on the light emission of Vibrio fischeri (Luminescent bacteria test)” could be helpful to your question.
Thank you for your reply, the wastewater would be "synthetic" (As in, we prepare it ourselves), but i did not consider the sterility of what would be an open air reactor. I will add microfiltration for the sample. Thank you.
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