surface and air dried paper towels treated with dilutions of the citrox bc active were wetted and then used to clean the inoculated bench top the bench top was visibly wet for 3 minutes contact time and then allowed to completely air dry rodac replicate organism detection and counting plates were used to sample the cleaned surface for surviving bacteria the plates were incubated overnight at a temperature appropriate to the challenge organism colonies were counted and the number used to calculate cfu cm 2 results were calculated by averaging the counts from five 3 u2033 u00d7 3 u2033 u201c grid squares u201d a rodac plate is used to touch the surface to be sampled after which the plate is incubated at an appropriate temperature there are nutrients in the media that promote the growth of a variety of microbes lecithin and polysorbate 80 are incorporated in the agar and function as disinfectant sanitizer neutralisers the type and number of microorganisms is detected by the appearance of colonies on the surface of the agar medium collection of samples from the same area before and after cleaning and treatment with a disinfectant permits the evaluation of sanitary procedures paper towels wetted with water and containing no citrox bc active were assessed for the ability to remove bacteria from a contaminated hard surface the results for this control i e unimpregnated paper towels are shown by the bar labelled u201c 0 u201d in fig1 and 2 fig1 and 2 show the results for both s aureus and e coli paper towels containing dilutions of the citrox bc active greater than 1 200 were able to reduce the levels of s aureus from gt 50 cfu.