Decontamination of surfaces from extremophile organisms using nonthermal atmospheric-pressure plasmas

Abstract

We showed that nonthermal dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma compromises the integrity of the cell membrane of Deinococcus radiodurans, an extremophile organism. In samples of D. radiodurans, which were dried in a laminar flow hood, we observe that DBD plasma exposure resulted in a six-log reduction in CFU (colony-forming unit) count after 30 min of treatment. When the Deinococcus radiodurans cells were suspended in distilled water and treated, it took only 15 s to achieve a four-log reduction of CFU count. © 2009 IEEE.