Glow Discharge Plasma Sterilization of Prokaryotic Microorganism Through Electrostatic Plasma

Abstract

Plasma is the fourth state of the matter In this state the matter has enough energy to delocalize the subparticles of the atoms that make up the material At the subatomic level plasma is a mixture of highly energized particles capable of causing destruction of DNA, mostly through free radicals, and disabling cell reproduction Due to the harsh conditions that current sterilization processes require on the materials, their use has been frequently limited The main objective of this research was to develop a sterilization method using air as ionized gas (air in plasma state) by the Glow Discharge method that would provide an a less aggressive alternative to current sterilization methods The physical chemical conditions of the “cold plasma state” allows us to expose a vast range of materials to plasma, causing minimal alterations, if any, in their physical and chemical constitution The results obtained experimentally suggest that the plasma sterilization method using air as gas is possible When evaluating the correlation of the variables pressure, current, and time on the CFU variable, it was found that time is the most influential variable to reduce the formation of CFUs when exposed to plasma Based on the results obtained, 6 minutes of exposure to air in its ionized state are sufficient to reduce the possibility of development of CFUs to almost 0%