Replies

TrebelRebel:

I believe you know something about aerosolization.

I would be extremely grateful
if you briefly could describe the equipment used to aerosolize products,
how large it is,
what it looks like
etc.

Also
Do you think such equipment could be made operate in a BL3 lab
without contaminating the environment?

Yes, indeed. The best place to look for the equipment needed is the recent paper jointly published by Dugway and CDC - where they simulated the spores used in the attacks. They added fumed silica (referencing but ignoring Beecher's paper which claimed the attack spores didn't use additives).

Here's how it was made:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790515467

Dried BaS spores were produced as follows: Ten liter (L) fermentation vessels were seeded (5% V/V) with overnight nutrient broth cultures of BaS. Spores were grown inGmedium that consists of: yeast extract, 2.0 g L−1; NH4SO4, 2.0 g L−1; Dow antifoam 204, 0.3mLL−1;MgSO4·7H2O, 0.2 gL−1;MnSO4·H2O, 0.038 g L−1; ZnSO4·7H2O, 0.005 g L−1; CuSO4·5H2O, 0.005 g L−1; FeSO4·7H2O, 0.005 g L−1; CaCl2·2H2O, 0.25 g L−1; K2HPO4, 0.500 g L−1; glucose, 1.0 g L−1. The pH was adjusted to 7.0 ± 0.1 and the glucose was added separately as a sterile solution after autoclaving. The culture was incubated at 30◦C in a 10 L fermentation vessel with an agitation rate of 250 RPM and an aeration rate greater than 0.5 volumes min−1. Sporulationwas generally complete within 24 h.

Spores were collected by simple centrifugation to remove spent media. The pelleted material was dried by a proprietary azeotropic method. Ten percent (by weight) of an amorphous silica-based flow enhancer was added to the dried spores. The dried material was milled using an exclusionary ball mill. In this process the material passed through a series of stages separated by increasingly finer mesh screens. In each stage 0.01 m diameter steel balls forced the product through the screen separators. A pneumatic vibrator actuated the entire mill.