The BBC is reporting that Cold Plasma may be a potent tool to control Norovirus, which is infamous for causing gastroenteritis outbreaks on cruise ships.
Norovirus is highly resistant to several chemical disinfectants — it usually requires a wipe down with chlorine bleach. Obviously this won't work on food.
The new research shows that cold plasma, a so called "4th state of matter" is effective at destroying viruses, while not affecting food at all. It is safe to the touch as well. It could be used in permanent fixtures in food service areas as well as restrooms.
Cold plasma treatment led to a roughly 20- to 50-fold reduction in the number of virus particles.
The viruses were destroyed because cold plasma consists of highly noxious ions, called reactive nitrogen and oxygen species, which exhibit potent antimicrobial activity.
Moreover, the cold plasma generator, which produces the ions by applying an electric field to ambient air, could be designed as a handheld device.
The work was performed by a team of German veterinary scientists in Hanover. The full paper is on line at American Society for Microbiology.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01 2015, @12:05PM
Breaking news: Viral capsids and bacterial envelopes have evolved resistance to the "4th state of matter". These microbes now incorporate rogue ions into their structures. Mass extinction of humanity is expected.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday February 01 2015, @12:36PM
More likely AC will be contamination switches entirely to the interior of the "food" not the exterior. I'm mystified why only the surface is a problem. Yeah yeah I know all about grilling steaks and the interior of meat being sterile until proven otherwise, pretty much. But not all "food" is a slab of meat, in fact most "food" seems to be a mixture, and has serving spoons stuck in it, etc.
I wonder how their generator works. I've fooled around with plasma cutters and they're really cool, but the consumables don't strike me as healthy/tasty. Might be something like tungsten oxide doesn't do much for the taste of food but if you spread one set of electrodes across 1000 acres of food over time, it doesn't taste like much at all.
Some nutcase out there has surely plasma cut a steak before, so you could get some idea how plasma treatment really tastes. The fact that foodies will pay anything for something new does tend to imply there are no food grade plasma torch technologies. Too bad as the idea of CNC precision artistically plasma cut food is mildly interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01 2015, @10:27PM
I wonder how their generator works
Yeah. I do too.
Back around the turn of the century, research using non-thermal plasma to do NOx reduction in diesel exhaust [google.com] was a thing.
In the coaxial structures of our reaction cell, there was less than 0.5 inch between the electrodes, in the space where the field was formed.
We were using 15kV - 22kV to excite the cell and, again, we were treating a gas.
Doing this with solid matter sounds pretty exotic.
...then again, if it doesn't have to be too compact or electrically efficient, that gives them a bit more freedom of design than we had.
plasma cutters[...]they're really cool
Yeah. Our welder/mechanical guy was constantly doing amazing things with his.
The currents with those are going to be much more concentrated than with a treatment system.
(UV treatment systems have also been mentioned farther down in the thread.)
This topic makes me wonder why plain old radiation isn't a treatment option.
Hormel had Top Shelf entrees 3 decades ago that didn't need refrigeration.
You expose the product to an isotope or (more likely) electrically-produced ionizing radiation and any microbes are lethally zapped.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Informative) by Non Sequor on Monday February 02 2015, @01:05AM
Apparently irradiation processes for food are approved by the FDA on a case by case basis.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/IrradiatedFoodPackaging/ucm242021.htm [fda.gov]
If you follow the link on that page, the Code includes a list of authorized uses along with some restrictions on radiation sources and levels applied.
I remember years ago there was some public controversy over this. The only decent argument against irradiation that I remember was that irradiating could be used as a method to white wash tainted foods which may harbor bacteria produced toxins. I guess those regulations basically reflect that concern. You have to convince the FDA that radiation is appropriate and effective for your particular food safety niche.
This makes me think this cold plasma dealy may get treated the same way.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday February 02 2015, @02:22AM
Those plasma cutters produce hot plasma. If you want a cold plasma device at atmospheric pressure, scavenge the Corona discharge subsystem from a laser printer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by Justin Case on Sunday February 01 2015, @12:41PM
> Mass extinction of humanity is expected.
This is why every Intelligent Designer has dev/test/QA planets for these experiments. What's that? You don't? Oh, it must suck over there. How do you tolerate the risk?
(Score: 5, Funny) by M. Baranczak on Sunday February 01 2015, @02:57PM
Our Intelligent Designer was under heavy pressure from "management" to make the ship date. They only gave Him 7 days to do it (theoretically, 6 working days and 1 day off; in reality, there was no way to meet the deadline without working 7 days). Most of it doesn't even have unit tests (which might explain the platypus).
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Sunday February 01 2015, @07:01PM
Oh, now I see your problem. You pay attention to management, as if they know anything.
We always assume "seven days" means "seven thousand years" and then, typically, we get done sooner than that. Ours took about six thousand years, as I recall.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01 2015, @12:45PM
they should allow fishing on cruise ships ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Sunday February 01 2015, @01:29PM
To me it seem UV light will do the job too. Ions you say...
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01 2015, @01:54PM
There are both viruses and bacteria that are resistant to UV.
Deinococcus radiodurans [wikipedia.org]
Isolation of UV-B resistant bacteria from two high altitude Andean lakes (4,400 m) with saline and non saline conditions. [nih.gov]
High resistance of fish pathogenic viruses to UV irradiation and ozonated seawater [sciencedirect.com]
Fundamental Mechanisms in the Extreme UV Resistance of Adenovirus [duke.edu]
(Score: 5, Informative) by mhajicek on Sunday February 01 2015, @02:58PM
Electron beam sterilization is already an industry standard:
http://www.iba-sterilization.com/ [iba-sterilization.com]
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Funny) by Dunbal on Sunday February 01 2015, @02:12PM
Now if they can only design cold plasma equipment for cruise ships that won't catch fire...