Modelling the effect of temperature on specific death rate of the micro-flora of raw cotton wool

Cotton wool for use in medicine must be sterilized and heat treatment is the most common sterilization technique for bulk processing of agricultural materials. Modelling the effect of temperature variations on specific death rate of the micro-flora of raw cotton wool was carried out in this project. The raw cotton wool was collected from a farmer in Kano State, the most important cotton wool producing state of Nigeria. The micro-flora was determined by inoculating and incubating with 0.85% NaCl diluents and the number of bacteria determined by plate count method. As the sterilization temperatures were varied with increased time, the thermal death rates and thermal death time of the micro-flora were determined for each temperature and these was used in the modelling. The model lnK = 83.9 – 34190(1/T) shows that the sterilization temperature has a linear relationship with the death rate constant and it is in line with Arrhenius model.