The interaction of an atmospheric pressure plasma jet using argon or argon plus hydrogen peroxide vapour addition with bacillus subtilis

This paper reports that an atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge plasma jet, which uses argon or argon + hydrogen peroxide vapour as the working gas, is designed to sterilize the bacillus subtilis. Compared with the pure argon plasma, the bacterial inactivation efficacy has a significant improvement when hydrogen peroxide vapour is added into the plasma jet. In order to determine which factors play the main role in inactivation, several methods are used, such as determination of optical emission spectra, high temperature dry air treatment, protein leakage quantification, and scanning electron microscope. These results indicate that the possible inactivation mechanisms are the synergistic actions of chemically active species and charged species.