Inactivation of airborne pathogen surrogates by triethylene glycol
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The COVID-19 outbreak brought to the fore the importance of airborne transmission in spreading human infectious diseases and highlighted the need for sustainable mitigation strategies. Triethylene glycol (TEG) has been documented as having microbicidal capabilities and has been proposed as one such mitigation strategy. Aerosolized TEG exhibits antimicrobial activity against airborne microorganisms. Grignard Pure Technology was developed to safely aerosolize TEG for decontamination of enclosed spaces. Here, we show that this TEG formulation effectively inactivates airborne microorganisms, resulting in 2 to 4.5 net log reduction in concentration of viable bacteria, viruses, and mycobacteria within 30–60 min at TEG concentration (aerosol + vapor) of ~0.7 mg/m3, which is well within the range considered safe for humans. Our data also demonstrate that aerosolizing both the test organisms and the antimicrobial product provides a more accurate and relevant measure of the product’s efficacy for indoor usage than traditional surface—or solution—based disinfection assays. Accurate evaluation of antimicrobial efficacy is a crucial step in adopting novel interventions and tools to control airborne pathogens that pose a public health risk. Our findings argue that testing protocols must match the intended use of any intervention. Given the safety concerns of aerosolizing human pathogens for direct testing of airborne infectious burden, we also advance an approach for selecting suitable surrogate microorganisms based on their phenotypic and biophysical similarity to corresponding pathogenic species.
Editor(s)
Reguera, Gemma
Date Issued
2026-02-18
Date Acceptance
2026-01-07
Citation
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2026, 92 (2)
ISSN
0099-2240
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Journal / Book Title
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Volume
92
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2026 Desai et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/41575207
Subjects
aerosolized antimicrobials
airborne transmission
antimicrobial efficacy
surrogate microorganisms
triethylene glycol
Polyethylene Glycols
COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2
Air Microbiology
Aerosols
Humans
Pandemics
Disinfection
Disinfectants
Bacteria
Viruses
Betacoronavirus
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
e02335-25
Date Publish Online
2026-01-23