Cleaning up anthrax

Janet Raloff

Chemists have developed a new technology that could quickly and inexpensively destroy anthrax spores in terrorist-contaminated buildings and on troops in the field.

Oxidizing agents, such as peroxides, can destroy cells, including bacterial spores, but they work slowly. To dramatically rev up the chemicals' activity, Colin Horwitz and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh created nontoxic catalysts composed of iron and chemical structures known as tetra-amido macrocyclic ligands.

A spray of sodium carbonate, bicarbonate, and trace amounts of one of the iron-ligand catalysts, followed by a spray of the oxidizing agent tertiary butyl hydroperoxide, killed all spores in tests with the bacterium Bacillus atrophaeus, the scientists reported in Pittsburgh last month at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual meeting (see http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041106/food.asp). B. atrophaeus is a standard nonlethal surrogate for anthrax in lab tests.

The complete kill took just 30 minutes, whereas a catalyst-free spray would destroy fewer than half of the spores in that time, the researchers say. "A decontamination time of 15 minutes—the U.S. Army's gold standard—is within sight," Horwitz says.

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References:

Chanda, A., S. Ketan, and C.P. Horwitz. 2004. Fe-TAML catalysts: A safe way to decontaminate an anthrax simulant. Society of Environmental Journalists annual meeting. October 20–24. Pittsburgh.

Further Readings:

Raloff, J. 2004. Pesticide disposal goes green. Science News Online (Nov. 6). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041106/food.asp.

Sources:

Colin P. Horwitz
Carnegie Mellon University
Department of Chemistry
4400 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

From Science News, Volume 166, No. 22, November 27, 2004, p. 348.