The Germicidal Properties of Certain Quarternary Ammonium Salts With Special Reference to Cetyl-Trimethyl-Ammonium Bromide

Surface Active Agents and Their Application in Bacteriology

“…In common with other chemical bactericides, the efficiency of surface active agents is affected by the presence of organic matter. Whereas, under standaidized experimental conditions, cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide displays a phenol coefficient of 1200 in the absence of added organic matter, this figure decreases to 380, 225, 150, and 62 respectively in the presence of 2, 5, 10, and 20 per cent added horse serum (84). Further illustration of the effect of the presence of protein material upon the bactericidal efficiency of cationic compounds against a variety of microorganisms may be found in table 5.…”

“…Systematic studies of the structure of quaternary ammonium compounds and their bactericidal functions have uniformly emphasized the importance of carbon chain length in determining activity. Considering the simple aliphatic quaternary ammonium compounds of the general type RN+(CL3)3, where R is a straight chain alkyl group, it has been found that as the chain length was increased from Cs to C18 the bactericidal activity increased substantially, reaching a maximum at C1, (84,208). Similar conclusions of dependence of bactericidal activity of cationic surface active agents upon their carbon chain length have been derived from studies of alkyl pyridinium chlorides (111,210), alkyl-dimethyl-sulfonium iodides (118), dialkyl-methyl-benzyl-ammonium chlorides (122), dialkyl-benz-triazolium bromides (124), azinium salts (238), sulfamyltetrazolium salts (93), alkyl-triethyl phosphonium and arsonium salts (94), alkyl-dimethyl-benzyl-phosphonium and arsonium salts (94), alkylcolaminoformylmethyl-pyridinium chlorides (49), alkyl-phenoxy-ethoxyethyldimethyl-benzyl-ammonium chlorides (197), imidazolium and imidazolinium salts (211), alkyl-benzyl-ammonium chlorides, alkyl-dimethyl-ethyl-ammonium bromides, alkyl-dimethyl-allyl-ammonium bromides, and alkyl-trimethyl-ammonium bromides (232).…”

“…As one departs from a neutral pH, the cationic compounds tend to become more efficient bactericides in more alkaline solutions and less efficient in acid solutions with the reverse situation holding true for the anionic compounds (48,59,60,61,84,190). Cetyl pyridinium chloride, however, seems to maintain an even level of bactericidal activity over the pH range of 2 to 10 (190) with no explanation apparent for its individuality in this respect.…”

Determination of Benzalkonium Chloride by Chemical Ionization Mass Spectroscopy

“…I C6H5CH2-N-R C1-L AH3 J I activity of the mixture (1)(2)(3). The current methods of identification of benzalkonium chloride solutions according to the USP (4), rely upon titrimetric analysis of total alkyl benzyldimethylammonium chloride based upon potassium iodate equivalents.…”

A Bactericidal Detergent for Eating Utensils

“…3, killed Staphylocus aureus more readily than Bacilus subtilis, which could account for the contamination with the latter organism of the slides removed after 6 and 8 minutes' washing time. Sporeforming organisms such as Bacillus msbtilis are far more resistant to quaternary ammonium compounds than Staphylococcus aureus (Green and Birkeland, 1941;Hoogerheide, 1945;Du Bois and Dibblee, 1946).…”