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Water bath is more efficient than hot air oven at thermal inactivation of coronavirus

Overview of attention for article published in Virology Journal, May 2023
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  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (59th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (64th percentile)

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Title
Water bath is more efficient than hot air oven at thermal inactivation of coronavirus
Published in
Virology Journal, May 2023
DOI 10.1186/s12985-023-02038-7
Pubmed ID
Authors

Xinxia Gu, Ting Cao, Jun Mou, Jie Liu

Abstract

Thermal inactivation is a conventional and effective method of eliminating the infectivity of pathogens from specimens in clinical and biological laboratories, and reducing the risk of occupational exposure and environmental contamination. During the COVID-19 pandemic, specimens from patients and potentially infected individuals were heat treated and processed under BSL-2 conditions in a safe, cost-effective, and timely manner. The temperature and duration of heat treatment are optimized and standardized in the protocol according to the susceptibility of the pathogen and the impact on the integrity of the specimens, but the heating device is often undefined. Devices and medium transferring the thermal energy vary in heating rate, specific heat capacity, and conductivity, resulting in variations in efficiency and inactivation outcome that may compromise biosafety and downstream biological assays. We evaluated the water bath and hot air oven in terms of pathogen inactivation efficiency, which are the most commonly used inactivation devices in hospitals and biological laboratories. By evaluating the temperature equilibrium and viral titer elimination under various conditions, we studied the devices and their inactivation outcomes under identical treatment protocol, and to analyzed the factors, such as energy conductivity, specific heat capacity, and heating rate, underlying the inactivation efficiencies. We compared thermal inactivation of coronavirus using different devices, and have found that the water bath was more efficient at reducing infectivity, with higher heat transfer and thermal equilibration than a forced hot air oven. In addition to the efficiency, the water bath showed relative consistency in temperature equilibration of samples of different volumes, reduced the need for prolonged heating, and eliminated the risk of pathogen spread by forced airflow. Our data support the proposal to define the heating device in the thermal inactivation protocol and in the specimen management policy.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 4 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 4 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 4 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Professor > Associate Professor 1 25%
Researcher 1 25%
Lecturer 1 25%
Unknown 1 25%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Computer Science 1 25%
Social Sciences 1 25%
Medicine and Dentistry 1 25%
Unknown 1 25%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 May 2023.
All research outputs
#14,571,576
of 25,838,141 outputs
Outputs from Virology Journal
#1,329
of 3,434 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#163,567
of 410,937 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Virology Journal
#28
of 79 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,838,141 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 43rd percentile – i.e., 43% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,434 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 24.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 60% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 410,937 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 59% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 79 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its contemporaries.