Design and implementation of a measurement system for ultra-weak bioluminescence detection from E. coli cultures applied to sanitary control

Ultra-weak photon emission (UWPE) detection and measurement from biological samples is a promising tool with potential use in several fields such as agriculture, environmental science, food science and biomedicine. An instrumentation based on a photomultiplier module (PMT) is presented, and its performance in terms of dark-noise and bacteria detection was evaluated in order to assure that it is able to feasibly realize UWPE measurements applied to sanitary control. The UWPE counter relies on a dark-chamber and a PMT. The PMT window is placed in the center of the chamber, sight above a Petri's dish that contains the biological sample. under measurement rests. The PMT is cooled down to 10°C to minimize the dark-counts. At 10°C the dark-count is around 17 counts/s, which is feasible for E. coli detection.