Kinetic study of thermal inactivation of enterococci and clostridial spores

Abstract

In order to better understand the fate of clostridia and enterococci during the heat treatment of livestock effluents, a first approach consisted in modelling their persistence under specific conditions (culture media, pure strain). The objective of this study is to establish the thermal inactivation kinetics of strains belonging to two species of enterococci (E. faecalis and E. faecium), to the species C. difficile and to the species C. novyi (used as a non-toxic model of C. botulinum group III), by evaluating in particular the scales imposed by European regulations.