Development of decontamination solutions against chemical and biological hazards in the field of defense

Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) agents and the incidents caused by these agents continue to pose serious threats to nations today. One of the primary aspects of CBRN defense is decontamination, which aims to eliminate the effects of contaminating substances and reduce their impact to levels that do not pose a health risk. Decontamination solutions should be formulated in consideration of the environmental and biological characteristics, especially when intended for use on living tissues. In this thesis, the microbial effects of new formulations containing six different components, which are developed on the basis of the currently used decontamination solutions, and the duration of microbial contamination on surfaces are examined. Prepared Biological Solutions (BS) and Chemical Solutions (KS) were prepared at concentrations of 1 mM, 3 mM and 5 mM and evaluated by disk diffusion method at 10^4, 10^6 and 10^8 CFU/mL concentrations of Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans microorganisms. At the level of 10^4 CFU/mL, BSI was the most effective solution for Pseudomonas aeruginosa (37.34 mm) and Staphylococcus aureus (45.63 mm), while KSIII (35.59 mm) for Escherichia coli and BSII (40.05 mm) for Candida albicans showed the highest efficacy. The effect of contact time at 1, 5, 10 and 15 minutes was evaluated by carrier test method in applications performed at 10^8 CFU/mL density on glass and metal surfaces. The BSIII solution for Staphylococcus aureus produced only 5 CFU/mL colonies on the glass surface at 1 minute; For Candida albicans, only 1 CFU/mL was observed on the BSII metal surface and on the KSIII glass surface at 1 minute. Up to 99% reduction in colony formation revealed that the solutions were effective from the first minute. Among the solutions, only the KSI formulation was found to be ineffective on either surface on Staphylococcus aureus. In UV-Vis analyses, the peak observed at 220 nm of the KSIII solution showed high reactivity due to the H2O2 content; The peaks of the BSIII solution in the range of 250–290 nm showed the aromatic structure of the clove oil extract. While the continuity of the oxidative effect in the solution content emerged in the spectrum, it increased the possibility that the solution could be effective if applied on chemical agents. As a result, some of the solutions developed exhibited broad-spectrum and high antimicrobial activity; Others have been more prominent in terms of biocompatibility depending on their content. In the field of CBRN defense, the evaluation of such new generation formulations in terms of both effectiveness and safety is of great importance for the production of domestic production solutions.