Decontamination of Microbiologically Contaminated Specimen by Direct and Indirect Plasma Treatment

Gentle sanitation of fresh fruits and vegetables is highly demanded. Currently used methods lead to losses in product amounts and quality. Furthermore, these methods go along with high costs and chemical residues. One reason for such problems is microbial contamination. Due to the fact that conventi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plasma processes and polymers 2012-06, Vol.9 (6), p.569-575
Main Authors: Schnabel, Uta, Niquet, Rijana, Krohmann, Udo, Winter, Jörn, Schlüter, Oliver, Weltmann, Klaus-Dieter, Ehlbeck, Jörg
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
bacterial spores
biological surfaces
decontamination
dielectric barrier discharges (DBD)
microwave discharges
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Summary:Gentle sanitation of fresh fruits and vegetables is highly demanded. Currently used methods lead to losses in product amounts and quality. Furthermore, these methods go along with high costs and chemical residues. One reason for such problems is microbial contamination. Due to the fact that conventional decontamination processes are not suitable for preservation of fresh produce, alternatives such as plasma technology can be helpful. Three different artificial specimen and seeds of Brassica napus were contaminated with endospores of Bacillus atrophaeus and afterwards plasma treated directly with DBD plasma and indirectly with microwave plasma processed air. After a treatment time of 15 minutes reduction rates between 0.5 and 5.2 log were achieved. The viability of seeds was not affected. The advantages of plasma and promising results offer a wide range of possible uses in food industry. The antimicrobial efficacy of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) and a microwave plasma setup against Bacillus atrophaeus spores on biological and non‐biological surfaces is investigated. Moreover, the establishment of a non‐biological specimen for the comparability of different plasma techniques is shown. The decontamination efficiency raised up to 5.2 log cfu/specimen by plasma treatment.
ISSN:1612-8850
1612-8869
DOI:10.1002/ppap.201100088