The results of the study suggest that the bactericidal action attributed to …

• Abstract
• Background
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Methods
• References
• Figures
• Table

The results presented in this paper suggest that the bactericidal action attributed to negative air ions by previous researchers may have been overestimated. With the exception of Mycobacterium parafortuitum, the principal cause of cell death amongst the bacteria studied was exposure to ozone, with electroporation playing a secondary role. However in the case of Mycobacterium parafortuitum, electroporation resulting from exposure to the electric field appears to have been the principle cause of cell inactivation. Further work is needed to determine whether this a feature common to all Mycobacterium species or indeed other bacteria with a similar cell wall structure such as Nocardia spp.