Inactivation of spores by electric arcs

BMC Microbiology

Research Article

Flavien Pillet¹  Marie-Pierre Rols¹  Damijan Miklavčič²  Tadej Kotnik²  Igor Marjanovič²  Matej Reberšek² 

[1] CNRS, IPBS (Institut de Pharmacologie et de Biologie Structurale), 205 Route de Narbonne BP64182, F-31077, Toulouse, France;Université de Toulouse, UPS, IPBS, F-31077, Toulouse, France;Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Tržaška 25, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia;

关键词: Electric arc discharges;    Bacterial spore eradication;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12866-016-0764-x

 received in 2016-05-12, accepted in 2016-07-06,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn the context of spore contamination involved in bio-terrorism and food preservation, the development of new techniques for spore inactivation is an important challenge.ResultsHere, a successful application of electric arc discharges resulting in spore death was reported. Two types of electric arcs were compared, different with respect to their durations. The discharges with 0.5 μs duration induced a small inactivation area of 0.6 % of surface treated around their point of entry into the sample, while those with 20 μs duration induced a much larger inactivation area from 7 to 55 % of surface treated roughly proportional to the number of discharges delivered. In particular, 50 discharges of 20 μs duration induced inactivation in more than 55% of surface treated at an inactivation rate above 3.6 log10.ConclusionsThese results are promising and warrant developing electric arcing as a novel method for spore inactivation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2016