» Laboratory Catalogue » Microbiological Analysis » Air Monitoring » BACTair™ 

BACTair™ - Big Impact.

A New Impact for Microbiological Air Monitoring

As regulations become more stringent, the microbial monitoring of ambient air is increasing importance in today's world. For example, microorganisms can have a major impact on product quality and the production process, and can even pose health hazards.

Air quality plays a key role in the pharmaceutical, biotechnological and food and beverage industries, in hospitals and in the field of occupational and environmental protection.

The most frequently used method today for sampling airborne organisms is based on the Andersen principle that traps particles on culture media by impaction. In this method, air is suctioned through a sieve, accelerated and directed against a culture medium plate. Due to their inertia, airborne organisms are prevented from being swept away by the diverted stream of air and are impacted onto the culture medium plate. After sampling, the culture medium plate is incubated and the colonies grown are counted as colony-forming units/m3 of air (cfu/m3).

Sartorius Stedim Biotech has developed a new system for sampling airborne microorganisms that allows impaction onto culture media plates, where the plates function directly as collection heads. This means that the collection properties are integrated right into the culture media plates. Metal sieve plates or metal collection heads with slots, which have to be sterilized for routine samplings on a regular basis, are eliminated. Now, non-sterile sieves or slots have become a thing of the past.

The geometry of the culture medium plate and the 400 holes in the sieve plate yield exceptional sampling efficiency, which is generally higher than that of other impaction samplers.

This new method uses the AirPort MD8 air sampler to pump the air stream. BACTairs™ are ready-to-connect to the AirPort MD8.

• Individually, sterile packaged
• Integrated disposable sieve
• Pre-filled with agar media
• Samples 1m³ in just 8 min
• Optimized geometry

The detection of airborne microbial contamination has never been so easy and so reliable!

BACTair™ saves your labor-time and guarantees reliable results:

BACTair™ stands for optimized geometry
The number of impaction-holes and their optimal position in relation to the sampling area are the key to reliable results.

Recovery Comparison Study
BACTair™ shows the highest recovery of bacteria due to optimized geometry and complete disposable design.

Correction Factors
BACTair™ provides 400 air impaction holes. A correction factor is only relevant with very high CFU counts.

Evaporation Effects
Because of its optimal design BACTair™ shows the lowest desiccation effects and enables viable microorganisms to grow under optimal conditions.