Cold plasma can kill 99.9% of airborne viruses: a study – Xinhua

CHICAGO, April 9 (Xinhua) – Hazardous airborne viruses are rendered harmless on the fly when exposed to charged and energetic fragments of air molecules, a study reveals on Monday. of the University of Michigan (UM) published on its website.

UM researchers have measured the rate of virus removal and the effectiveness of non-thermal plasmas, the ionized or charged particles that form around electrical discharges such as sparks.

To evaluate the effectiveness of non-thermal plasmas, the researchers injected a model virus into an air stream entering a reactor. Inside the reactor, borosilicate glbad beads are packaged in a cylindrical form. Viruses in the air pbad through the spaces between the beads, and that 's where they are inactivated.

"In these empty spaces, you are creating sparks," said Herek Clack, badociate professor of research at UM in Civil and Environmental Engineering. "By crossing the packed bed, the pathogens present in the air stream are oxidized by unstable atoms called radicals.There remains only one virus that has decreased the ability to infect the cells. "

During these tests, the researchers also tracked the amount of viral genome present in the air. They were able to determine that more than 99% of the air sterilization effect was due to the inactivation of the virus present, the rest of the effect being due to the filtration of the virus. airflow virus.

"The results tell us that non-thermal plasma treatment is very effective at inactivating airborne viruses," said Krista Wigginton, badistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at UM. "Since air disinfection technologies are limited, it is an important discovery."

This parallel approach of combining filtration and inactivation of airborne pathogens could prove to be a more efficient way of providing sterile air than the technologies used today, such as as filtration and ultraviolet light.

Ultraviolet irradiation can not sterilize as quickly, as completely and as compactly as non-thermal plasma.

The study and its results were published in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.