Sterilization using dielectric barrier discharge at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

The newly developed plasma method has advantages of low temperature operation, time-saving and non-toxicity over the conventional methods, such as dry heat, steam autoclave, /spl gamma/ -ray irradiation and ethylene oxide (EtO) gas. Sterilization effect of discharge plasma on Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli (E. coli) was investigated using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma under dry and wet conditions at atmospheric pressure. The wet plasma system showed much higher performance in terms of treatment time compared with the dry method as well as conventional ones. These results suggest that free radicals generated by discharge plasma played an important role in sterilization.