Are Hand Sanitizers and Antimicrobials Effective?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The purpose of this experiment was to test the effectiveness of 9 common store bought antimicrobial, a 30% and 50% dilution of ethanol, and a 5% dilution of bleach on 5 types of bacteria. Methods/Materials 10 bacterial lawns were made utilizing k-12 E. coli, Pseudomas fluorescens, S. epidermidis, Bacillus subtillus, and Enterobacter aerogenes on Mueller Hinton agar. Sterile disks were placed on the different dilutions and antimicrobials, then placed on the bacteria lawns. Plates were incubated for 24 hours at 37 degrees Celsius, and the zone of inhibition of each antimicrobial was measured in millimeters using a ruler. The experiment was repeated 3 times. Results After 3 trials, the zones of inhibition for each antimicrobial was averaged out. The averages show that 409 All-Purpose had the overall average zone of inhibition of 14.26 mm, making it the most effective antimicrobial. Conclusions/Discussion 409 All-Purpose cleaner was the most effective antimicrobial due to having a higher quantity of a specific quaternary ammonium compound. This can help kill bacteria more effectively and prevent the development of MDR.

Awards (1)

• Fourth Place

Competition history

• CSEF 2016 Product Science (Biological) (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1921

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Cellular and Molecular Biology projects
• CSEF Cellular and Molecular Biology projects
• Every CSEF 2016 project
• CSEF Fourth Place winners