Microbial Death

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Abstract
Microbial inactivation studies seem to be dominated by the exponential-single hit and multitarget theories, the former being applied mostly to heat inactivation kinetics and the latter to microbial inactivation by radiations. However, both theories are unable to satisfactorily explain some relevant experimental results, although they are valid enough to be of some predictive value in sterilization technology. An attempt is made to avoid interpreting experimental data in too simplistic a fashion, and a general theory is presented which provides a unifying description of microbial inactivation kinetics. Microorganisms can be regarded as elementary biological particles able to undertake functional relationships within aqueous surroundings, whether provided with levels of autonomous functional organization. Concave survivor curves characterized by a continuously decreasing death rate (CDDR) with increasing treatment time or size, and often described as bi- or multiphasic, can be produced by many physical and chemical lethal agents.

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