Application of Atmospheric Cold Plasma for Inactivation of Spoilage and Pathogen Microorganisms

Abstract

Abstract The effect of cold atmospheric plasma (ACP) technique on inactivation of selected microorganisms was investigated. To study the effect of cold plasma on microorganism inactivation Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma was applied. The inactivation of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and 4 pathogen microorganisms (Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus) using DBD cold plasma were investigated. The results have shown that yeast can be effectively inactivated on agar plate within 5 min cold plasma treatment. Adding H2O2 in concentration of 2 or 5% on agar plate improved the inactivation of microorganisms using cold plasma. Furthermore, it was observed that it is possible to inactive pathogen microorganisms on agar plate using DBD cold plasma within 3 to 5 min treatment time. Up to 57%, 96%, 91% and 94 % pathogen microorganisms inactivation was achieved after 1 min DBD plasma treatments of S. aureus, L. monocytogenes, E. coli, and S. typhimurium respectively.