The Methodological Recommendations provide a general review of the aerosol means of disinfecting, quote the main characteristics of electrochemically activated solution (ECAS), aerosol equipment, ways of treatment under different epidemiological circumstances.

  The Methodological Recommendations are intended for immediate operators: disinfecting personnel, as well as for specialists of medical, veterinary, and bacteriological services, who carry out inspection of sanitary condition in institutions and enterprises.

  1.1. Air is a natural aerosol. Most micro-organisms exist in a dust milieu and tend to accumulate there concentrating in areas difficult for access, they are moved by air flows thus creating the potential foci of infection.

  Excessive satiation of air with micro-organisms depresses the human organism's protective mechanisms as well as those of animals and birds. 95% of all micro-organisms exist in dust.

  Resistance of a number of infectious pathogenic agents results in a massive contamination of environmental secluded nooks with dust, particularly in rooms. Therefore it is important to be able to use such a way of treatment which would guarantee disinfecting of all the places where a pathogenic agent of one or another infectious disease could have entered.

  1.2. Such a way includes primarily an aerosol type when a disinfecting substance is converted into a fine state and periodically introduced into the air milieu of a room, transport carrier, container, etc.

  Aerosol fills up the whole space, settles in smallest drops on the surfaces of object (walls, floor, equipment, implements).

  The aerosol drops will partially evaporate and in this state they are able to penetrate all the cracks, secluded nooks, grooves, rifts.

  Aerosol disinfecting is necessary for preventing diseases in humans as well as animals. In case of the aerosol way of disinfecting, expenditure of disinfecting substances decreases while the labour productivity increases.

  Besides, the aerosol way enables to disinfect the surfaces and air of closed rooms as well as all the objects within.

  1.3. The bactericide effect of aerosols is based on two processes:

  Bactericide aerosols even in small amounts act effectively upon the micro-organisms dispersed in air in the form of separate cells, or upon accumulations of a few cells from mucus drops or from dried up particles protected by a thin colloid film. In this case, the aerosol bactericide effect comprises the result of the disinfecting solution vapours diffusion into the bacterial particle rather than in a collision of its particles with the micro-flora.

  Vapours of the disinfecting agent will condense on a bacterial cell which serves as a condensation nucleus, and will interact with it. That is why the aerosol effect develops in the air milieu at minimal concentrations of the disinfecting substance.

  For the aerosol disinfecting, such conditions should be created when the micro-organisms incoming into the air milieu and transported by it will be so rapidly suppressed that the epidemiological chain will be interrupted and an aerogenic contamination will be prevented.

  However, this concentration and this amount of aerosol is insufficient for effective treatment of the surfaces. On the surfaces, the micro-organisms exist mixed with an organic substrate the amount of which is much larger than the microbe mass. So they are firmly protected by this organic substrate. As the micro-organisms' resistance is enhanced in presence of an organic load, an increase of the oxidiser concentration and exposure term would be quite justified when treating objects with a high level of the protein load, in order to be able to imbue all organic substrates including the micro-organism cells existing in them.

  Bactericide properties of the aerosol rarely increase with a raise of temperature but the disinfecting solution consumption will increase, too.

  1.4. One should pay a particular attention to sanative treatment of the air milieu in presence of animals and birds.

  The air contaminated with the micro-organisms may become a stress factor for animals and birds thus leading to a drop in the productivity and exacerbation of respiratory diseases, as well as to increased expenses for forage.

  Dust as a mechanical stimulus presents a considerable danger as an aerosol source of infection. Therefore one of the most urgent tasks involves a reduction of the microbial background density in working rooms.

  Disinfecting in proximity of animals (birds) presents stern requirements to the disinfecting agent: it should not be toxic, irritate the mucous membrane, emit an unpleasant smell, corrode metals or ignite by itself. At the same time, it should be cheap and possess a high biocide activity in respect to any micro-organisms. These requirements could only be fully met by the electrochemically activated solutions (ECASs). The solutions obtained on the "STEL" installations are specific in their small concentration of initial and synthesised substances which makes them similar to ordinary water and absolutely safe for humans, animals, and environment. At the same time, the ECASs possess excellent functional properties: their detergent capacity is better than that of the surface-active substances, whereas their biocide activity in respect to the micro-organisms of any types and species is by many scores higher than that of the best chemical compounds such as Hydrogen peroxide, formaldehyde, and others.

  1.5. The main advantage of these solutions, as compared with traditionally applied chemical compounds, involves their complete biological compatibility and safety. Besides, they contain no chemical elements or compounds alien to the human or animal organisms.

  The ECASs' advantages over traditional disinfecting means also involve these:

  1.6. The anolyte disinfecting effect upon the air milieu and microflora surfaces depends on micro-organism concentration, exposure term, and specifics of treatment. Therefore it is important that such modern ways and instrumental means are found which would guarantee disinfecting of all the places where a pathogenic agent of one or other infection could have entered. The aerosol disinfecting technology involves different approaches including also absence of the operator in the area under treatment.

  Use of the anolyte aerosols enables to reduce 3-5-fold the microflora level on vertical surfaces and 10-15 - fold on horizontal those.

  It is important that the aerosol disinfecting technology become an integral part of the manufacturing process; that it were included in the structure of the product quality improvement; that it provide a powerful incentive for institutions and enterprises to improve competitiveness of their produce and the prospects of increasing their output capacity.

  2.1. "STEL-TUMAN" aerosol complex is intended for complete prophylactic, ongoing, and terminal disinfecting of objects, including a sanative treatment of the air milieu. The treatment will be carried out by means of the anolyte fine aerosol cloud.

  2.2. The complex consists of two parts:

  2.3. The anolyte produced on the STEL-10N-120-01 installation by means of electrochemical treatment of sodium chloride solution in sweet water appears to be a colourless liquid containing highly active oxygen compounds of chlorine, etc. Depending on intention of application, most often the anolyte with the active chlorine content 0.03, 0.06% and the pH value from 5 to 8, will be obtained and used for the aerosols.

  The above parameters should be checked at the beginning of the installation operation as well as in the course of its operation after every switching over to another mode of operation (the solution consumption, current strength), to enable to obtain an anolyte with a different willed (out of the above) concentration of active chlorine, but not less often than once a week.

  2.4. The anolyte possesses antimicrobial (bactericide, virulicide, fungicide, sporocide) and detergent properties.

  2.5. The anolyte will be used in an undiluted form and only once. The anolyte shelf life is 48 hours provided it is stored in a closed glass, plastic or enamelled (with undamaged enamel) container at a room temperature and in places protected from direct sum light. Its peak activity, however, occurs during first 2-4 hours.

  2.6. The "TUMAN" installation appears to be a high-velocity (24000 r.p.m.) disc aerosol generator mounted on a mobile trolley. An up to 20-L jerrican with anolyte is mounted on the same trolley.

  2.7. Putting on and off of the aerosol installation will be performed with a remote control, by means of a control panel placed outside the area under treatment.

  2.8. The "TUMAN-2" aerosol installation appears to be a unit of an atomiser type. It is intended for treatment (washing, disinfecting) of rooms, technological containers of any configuration with the inlet port diameter not less than 30 mm, transport means and pipelines.

  3.1. The disinfecting with anolyte will be carried out by means of creation of a fine aerosol cloud in a closed space.

  3.2. The aerosol disinfecting using anolytes is presented in Table 1.

  3.3. Surfaces of rooms, equipment, air milieu will be treated as follows:

  Amount of the anolyte necessary for disinfecting an object will be calculated by the formula К= У х Р, where,
  К – amount of anolyte in litres
  У – space in m³
  Р – anolyte consumption per one m³. This has been calculated in an empirical way and is equal to 0.05 L\m³.

  For instance, the room space is У= 100 m³, then:
  К =100 m³ x 0.05 L\ m³ =5 L.

  3.5. Term of effective disinfecting of an object will be calculated by the formula:
  Т = К : P, where
  Т – term of the treatment of the object
  К – the amount of anolyte necessary for disinfecting.
  P – the generator productivity.

  For the objects whose space does not exceed 400 m³, the generator productivity will be established on the level of 0.5 L\min.
  For instance, the term of treating the room with the space У =100 m³, with anolyte consumption К = 5 L, will be
  Т=5 : 0.5 =10 min.

  3.6. The aerosol disinfecting should better be carried out using ordinary means of the operator protection: respirator, gloves, overall.

  3.7. Following the aerosol disinfecting, a combined extract and input ventilation will be switched on or aeration of the room will be performed in an ordinary way: opening windows and doors of the room under treatment.

  3.8. The recommended solution:

  3.9. Repeated and subsequent regular treatment of the rooms guarantee a high quality of the disinfecting.

  3.10. Prior to the room treatment, it is necessary to protect from the aerosol electric boards, electronic equipment, devices, etc.

  4.1.1. The directed aerosols with the mass median diameter of particles of up to 100 mcm will be obtained with the aid of the "Тuman-2" generator, with productivity of 6 litres per one minute.

  4.1.2. With the aid of the directed aerosols, open rooms, containers, and some equipment items will be disinfected from a 3-12-m distance providing their even covering with a fine film of disinfecting substance.

  5.1. The anolyte quality will be controlled by concentration of the active chlorine in the anolyte and the pH value.

  5.2. To determine the active chlorine concentration, one should use:

  5.3. Determination of the anolyte pH value will be performed using ionometer И-120 –1, or any other pH-meter, whether domestically produced or a foreign one, certified in Russia, e.g. "Water-tester" by HANNA Company (USA).

  5.4. The quality of disinfecting at a site in presence of bacterial, viral, or fungal infection, will be assessed by the existing techniques after completion of the disinfecting.

  Тable 1. Modes of disinfecting various objects with anolyte.

  Тable 2. The Table of disinfecting substance (anolyte) consumption in rooms of different space sizes.

  6.1. Comparative economic characteristics of the anolyte solutions produced on the "STEL" installations, and the available disinfecting means, e.g. chloramine B.

  6.1.2. Expenditures in using the electrochemically activated solutions.

  6.1.3. Expenditures for traditional disinfecting methods using chloramine B.

  Thus the expenditure savings per one month when using different "STEL" installation will amount up to:

  6.2. The economic characteristics of the "TUMAN" complex.

  As six years of the "STEL-TUMAN" complex operation has shown, it pays for itself within 5-10 months.

  The complex may be used in medical and therapeutic-prophylactic institutions, in agricultural enterprises, those of the food and processing industries, in communal-domestic sphere, transport, etc.

  Аpprobation of the aerosol disinfecting approach using the ECA-solutions.

  Medical institutions:

  Manufacturing enterprises:

  Agricultural enterprises:

  Cultural objects:

  

  Permissive documents for using the "STEL-TUMAN" Complex: