Cold Plasma Rapid Decontamination of Food Contact Surfaces Contaminated with Salmonella Biofilms

Abstract

Pathogens such as Salmonella can form chemical-resistant biofilms, making them difficult to remove from food contact surfaces. A 15 s treatment with cold plasma reduced mature Salmonella biofilms by up to 2.13 log CFU/mL (99.3%). This contact-free, waterless method uses no chemical sanitizers. Cold plasma may therefore have a practical application for conveyor belts, equipment, and other food contact surfaces where a rapid, dry antimicrobial process is required.

Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells with the Canady Cold Plasma Conversion System: Preliminary Results

“…The power deposited into the cold plasma discharge at 20 P, 40 P, 60 P, 80 P, 100 P, and 120 P for 3 lpm and 1 lpm was plotted in Figure 2D. The power settings of 20 P, 40 P, 60 P, 80 P, 100 P, and 120 P yield powers deposited into the cold plasma discharge of 5 The length of the CAP beam was also measured at different power settings for both flow rates and plotted in Figure 2E. At 3 lpm, the length of the beam increases rapidly from 1.5 to 2 cm and to 2.3 cm when the power is increased from 20 P to 40 P and to 60 P. After 60 P, the length remains constant at 2.4 cm as the power further increases up to 120 P. This trend also applies to 1 lpm.…”

“…Patients with triple-negative disease have a lower three-year survival rate following chemotherapy than patients with breast cancers of other subtypes [4]. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has been extensively studied for its biomedical use in various fields such as surface decontamination [5], wound healing [6,7], dental treatment [8], allergen destruction [9], HIV virus treatment [10] and among others [11]. In particular, the research of CAP as a potential oncotherapeutic approach has thrived over the past decade and the mechanism is been increasingly understood [12][13][14][15][16].…”

Cold Plasma Inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 Biofilms

“…The cold plasma equipment used in this study was a Dyne-AMite HP (Enercon Corp., Menomonee Falls, WI), modified to allow for variation of the electrical pulse frequency, and described previously (Niemira, 2012b;Niemira et al, 2014). Briefly, this AC plasma jet device is based on a form of gliding arc plasma (Figure 1).…”

“…Varying the speed of the conveyor belt was the method by which the time of exposure under the cold plasma emitter head for each side of the glass slide was controlled by. The separations were chosen to place the biofilms within the zones of "active" plasma (5 cm) or "quenched" plasma (7.5 cm), as previously described (Niemira et al, 2014).…”

“…Typically, high voltage electricity is used to ionize gas molecules into a reactive plasma, which can inactivate pathogenic bacteria and viruses (Bermúdez-Aguirre et al, 2013;Lacombe et al, 2017;Min et al, 2017). Cold plasma has also shown specific activity against biofilms, including biofilm-associated Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli biofilms (Brelles-Mariño, 2012;Niemira et al, 2014;Ziuzina et al, 2015). One challenge for cold plasma as an antimicrobial process can be the treatment times required for inactivation, which can vary significantly with the type of cold plasma technology being used.…”