Green Surface Cleaning in a Radical Vapor Reactor to Remove Organic Fouling on a Substrate

Abstract

Green cleanup processes for adhered organic fouling on solid surfaces can be successfully performed using a radical vapor reactor (RVR). The RVR can produce large concentrations of reactive oxygen species (ROS, e.g. singlet oxygen (1 O 2) and hydroxyl radicals (•OH)) and can expose them to objective materials. The RVR finds excellent utility in the fields of sterilization and surface functionalization. In this study, RVR is employed in a green cleanup of solid surfaces fouled by an organic polymer and a protein. The RVR produced ROS and removed the adhered organic polymers and proteins from the solid surface. The mechanism of how ROS react with fouling molecules was also elucidated by surface analysis. The greatest advantage of this green RVR cleanup process is that it discharges only air and water. The ROS production and exposure by the RVR successfully cleaned the adhered organic polymer and protein at ambient temperature and pressure without any chemicals. This high-quality, low-cost cleaning technology, which does not require much time and produces no hazardous waste, makes a great contribution to the cleaning industry.

Reactive Oxygen Species Penetrate Persister Cell Membranes of Escherichia coli for Effective Cell Killing

“…Therefore, the RVR has minimal environmental effects. The ROS of the RVR can be used for various applications such as to functionalize the surface of materials (Yamasaki et al, 2017 ) and for surface cleaning (Yamasaki et al, 2018 ). ROS are suitable for sterilization because of their strong oxidation activities.…”