Chlorination of Poultry Chiller Water: Chlorine Demand and Disinfection Efficiency

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the general composition of equilibrated poultry chiller water (near maximum solids content) from a commercial operation, the chlorine consumption by its components, and the chlorine dosage necessary to achieve its disinfection. The equilibrated chiller water contained .35% (CV, 40%) solids, which consisted of lipids (56%), ash (33%), and total nitrogen (4.2%). Residual chlorine and survival of aerobic bacteria were determined in chiller water dosed with chlorine levels ranging from 0 to 400 ppm. Initially, the added chlorine was rapidly consumed by the components of chiller water. However, the consumption rate quickly decreased to 1/1,000 of the initial rate after about 50 min. The change of residual chlorine with time was found to fit mathematically to a two-term exponential equation. The equilibrated chiller water had a chlorine demand greater than the highest chlorine dosage tested (400 ppm). No free chlorine was detected in the water after 30 min of exposure to 300 ppm chlorine. Because of the high chlorine demand, dosages of 100 to 150 ppm chlorine were required to reduce the number of bacteria by at least 99% within 3 to 5 min in laboratory tests. Increasing the time of exposure to chlorine resulted in further reduction, although at a slow rate, of surviving bacteria from treatments that gave incomplete destruction with short exposure. (

Quantitative investigation on the effects of chemical treatments in reducing Listeria monocytogenes populations on chicken breast meat

“…Similar findings were reported by Lin, Huang, Cornell, Lin, and Wei, 1996, who observed that L. monocytogenes washed off the fish cubes at high-level inoculation was not completely eliminated by the three chlorinating solutions used (aqueous chlorine, chlorine dioxide obtained in situ and commercial chlorine dioxide), even at 400 ppm. Tsai, Schade, and Molineux, 1992 showed that poultry chlorinating chiller water at 40 mg/l of chlorine reduced L. monocytogenes in poultry by only 37-50% in 3-5 min. At least 100 mg/l of chlorine was needed in order to achieve a 99% (two log units) reduction.…”

“…Chlorine demand is affected by factors such as the presence of organic compounds and interactions between such compounds and chlorine. The competition for available chlorine between bacterial constituents and chicken components affects bactericidal activity (Tsai et al, 1992).…”

Modeling cross-contamination during poultry processing: Dynamics in the chiller tank

“…Organic material in the chiller water q: From Tsai et al (1992), the total suspended solids in the chiller water is 0.35% (i.e. about 3500 mg/l) (this value is similar to the initial measuring station in the tank (Northcutt et al, 2008)).…”

“…Due to the fact that the we have a relatively complete data set for generic E. coli, both bacteria levels and transfer during industrial chiller processes (Cavani, Schocken-Iturrino, Garcia, & de Oliveira, 2010;Northcutt, Smith, Huezo, & Ingram, 2008;Tsai, Schade, & Molyneux, 1992) and chlorine inactivation (Helbling & VanBriesen, 2007), we tailor our model to address the specific dynamics associated to the chiller water chemistry and cross-contamination of broiler carcasses contaminated with non-pathogenic E. coli. For the parameter ranges specific to this situation, the solutions of system (7) approach S on the order of 200e250 min, which means during a typical 8 h shift, if there is little variation in the average E. coli load on carcasses, i.e.…”

Quantitative Structure-Activity Relation Study of Quaternary Ammonium Compounds in Pathogen Control: Computational Methods for the Discovery of Food Antimicrobials

“…These technologies involve the use of chlorine, chlorine dioxide, Salimide, ozone, and cetylpyridinium chloride [5][6][7][8][9].…”