Robust hydrogen peroxide enhanced plasma effluent for the clinical setting

Summary form only given. In recent years there have been a significant number of experiments illustrating the bacterialcidal properties of non-thermal plasma produced under various conditions. A large class of these devices are based on either dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) argon plasmas or DBD air plasmas where the negative electrode is the surface to be disinfected. Although setups where the discharge is in close proximity to pathogens can have the advantage of utilizing short lived species induced in the plasma, such discharges are restricted by sensitivity to surface geometry. Likewise, the requirement of pressurized argon is severely limiting for practical applications. We have developed a non-thermal plasma system where the discharge is removed from the disinfection zone and plasma induced free radicals are delivered through an air stream. The physical distance between the discharge and the treatment surface can be up to 3 meters. The bacterialcidal properties of the free radical effluent are enhanced by hydrogen peroxide additives. This device has been tested for clinical applications including disinfection of plastic ID badges, disinfection of live tissue, and neutralization of biofilms. We report sterilization (6 log reduction) of staphylococcus aureus and pseudomonas strains in under 1 minute of exposure. The concentration of hydrogen peroxide additives is seen to be a key variable in sterilization efficacy suggesting that active species in our experiment may be different than in other DBD configurations. The key innovation of our approach is that we achieve sterilization performance on par or better than published results using a setup that is more robust and flexible for clinical implementation.