In anticipation of a validation program for the use of chlorine dioxide (CD) gas in the
decontamination of laminar flow biological safety cabinets, the use of Bacillus atrophaeus
(BA) and Geobacillus stearothermophilus (GS) endospores for biological indicators (BIs) of
CD gas decontaminations were studied. This work includes studies of BIs having either
paper or steel substrates. BI analyses were performed with both enumeration and
fractionation methods. Among the conclusions it was found that in using paper GS BIs,
results from enumeration analysis proved to be too variable to monitor CD
decontaminations. Targeted CD exposure levels provided significantly less than a 6-log
spore reduction of GS spores on steel substrates, but were very effective for GS BIs with
paper substrates. BA spores on paper proved to be suitable and repeatable for validation
work with either enumeration or fractionation analysis. Formaldehyde decontamination
conditions used in standard practices were largely ineffective to decontaminate the GS
indicators.
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