Papers by Gurpreet Kaur Khaira
Providing safe drinking water is an important public health issue and recent studies have recogni... more Providing safe drinking water is an important public health issue and recent studies have recognized commonly used flocculants and disinfectants responsible for unintended health hazards. An increased resistance of waterborne pathogens to synthetic biocides and environmental considerations underpin an urgency to develop strong, economically viable and ecofriendly replacements of conventional synthetic flocculants and disinfectants. Distinctive nature of microbial extracellular polymers containing amino groups can be explored in hope to obtain effective and safe substitute to chemical biocides. Although, many natural and synthetic water treatment agents are available in the market, but natural products are not as efficient as the semisynthetic or synthetic compounds in terms of efficacy. Thus in the present study, an attempt was made to design a semi-synthetic flocculant-disinfectant replete with sustainability, cost effectiveness, biocompatibility, non-toxic polymers with high inact...
Journal of Water and Health, 2014
This study evaluated the antibacterial spectrum and safety of a chemically modified biopolymeric ... more This study evaluated the antibacterial spectrum and safety of a chemically modified biopolymeric flocculant (TMB) against waterborne pathogens. The biopolymer previously characterized as polysaccharide with flocculating activity is produced extracellularly by the bacterium Klebsiella terrigena. The amino sugars on the polymer were chemically modified by quaternization, which resulted in N,N,N trimethyl biopolymer (TMB). Quaternization was effective in imparting biocidal activity to TMB against five selected waterborne pathogens, namely, Aeromonas hydrophila, Yersinia enterocolitica, Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7. 99.999% inactivation was achieved with S. typhimurium at a dose of 60 μg ml−1 of TMB within 60 min at the ambient temperature, followed by other pathogens. Haemotological, histopathological and general examinations indicated no adverse effects in Swiss albino mice fed with the quaternized biopolymer (120 mg kg−1 body weight−1 da...
Water Science & Technology: Water Supply, 2014
ABSTRACT
Journal of Water and Health, 2013
The antibacterial activity of a water-soluble chitosan derivative prepared by chemical modificati... more The antibacterial activity of a water-soluble chitosan derivative prepared by chemical modification to quaternary ammonium compound N,N,N-trimethylchitosan (TC) was investigated against four selected waterborne pathogens: Aeromonas hydrophila ATCC 35654, Yersinia enterocolitica ATCC 9610, Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 19111 and Escherichia coli O157:H7 ATCC 32150. An inactivation of 4 log CFU/ml of all waterborne pathogens was noted for the quaternized chitosan as compared with chitosan over a short contact time (30 min) and low dosage (4.5 ppm) at ambient temperature. A marked increase in glucose level, protein content and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity was observed concurrently in the cell supernatant to be a major bactericidal mechanism. The results suggest that the TC derivative may be a promising commercial substitute for acid-soluble chitosan for rapid and effective disinfection of water.
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Papers by Gurpreet Kaur Khaira