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Log reduction

Measure of decontamination

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Source updated July 3, 2025

Log reduction is a measure of how thoroughly a decontamination process reduces the concentration of a contaminant. It is defined as the common logarithm of the ratio of the levels of contamination before and after the process, so an increment of 1 corresponds to a reduction in concentration by a factor of 10. In general, an n-log reduction means that the concentration of remaining contaminants is only 10⁻ⁿ times that of the original. So for example, a 0-log reduction is no reduction at all, while a 1-log reduction corresponds to a reduction of 90 percent from the original concentration, and a 2-log reduction corresponds to a reduction of 99 percent from the original concentration.

01Mathematical definition

Let c_b and c_a be the numerical values of the concentrations of a given contaminant, respectively before and after treatment, following a defined process. It is irrelevant in what units these concentrations are given, provided that both use the same units.

Then an R-log reduction is achieved, where

$R=\log _{10}{c_{\mathrm {b} }}-\log _{10}{c_{\mathrm {a} }}=-\log _{10}{\left({\frac {c_{\mathrm {a} }}{c_{\mathrm {b} }}}\right)}$ .

For the purpose of presentation, the value of R is rounded down to a desired precision, usually to a whole number.

Example

Let the concentration of some contaminant be 580 ppm before and 0.725 ppm after treatment. Then

$R=-\log _{10}{\left({\frac {0.725}{580}}\right)}=-\log _{10}{0.00125}\approx 2.903$

Rounded down, R is 2, so a 2-log reduction is achieved.

Conversely, an R-log reduction means that a reduction by a factor of 10^R has been achieved.

02Log reduction and percentage reduction

Reduction is often expressed as a percentage. The closer it is to 100%, the better. Letting c_b and c_a be as before, a reduction by P % is achieved, where

$P=100~\times ~{\frac {c_{\mathrm {b} }-c_{\mathrm {a} }}{c_{\mathrm {b} }}}.$
Example

Let, as in the earlier example, the concentration of some contaminant be 580 ppm before and 0.725 ppm after treatment. Then

$P~=~100~\times ~{\frac {580-0.725}{580}}~=~100~\times ~0.99875~=~99.875.$

So this is (better than) a 99% reduction, but not yet quite a 99.9% reduction.

The following table summarizes the most common cases.

Log reduction	Percentage
1-log reduction	90%
2-log reduction	99%
3-log reduction	99.9%
4-log reduction	99.99%
5-log reduction	99.999%

In general, if R is a whole number, an R-log reduction corresponds to a percentage reduction with R leading digits "9" in the percentage (provided that it is at least 10%).

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Log reduction”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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Log reduction

01Mathematical definition

02Log reduction and percentage reduction

Sources and credits

Related topics

D-value (microbiology)