Comparative evaluation of the virucidal effect of remote and direct cold air plasmas with UV-C

Cold atmospheric pressure plasma is an emerging nonthermal processing technology for the decontamination of foodborne pathogens. This study presents a comparative evaluation of the energy efficiency of the decontamination by three different dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) setups operating in air against Feline calicivirus with a UV-C lamp. Significant enhancement of the energy efficiency was achieved with a lab-scale batch reactor prototype, which employed surface DBD, leading to similar energy per unit area requirements as that for UV-C. A key advantage of plasma over UV-based disinfection systems is that plasmas are not limited by shadowing effects. Nonetheless, unlike UV-C, the virucidal efficacy of plasma is significantly reduced for dry samples and remote plasma treatment is only effective against wet samples.