Cold Plasma Source For Treatment Of Food And Food Processing Equipment To Enhance Food Safety

Our primary goal is to develop a new type of Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma (CAP) source that can be used in a variety of food processing settings for both treating food and cleaning food processing equipment. This new system will have advantages over existing systems in terms of its compatibility with high temperature processes and its ability to deliver plasma ion species to the target. In this Seed project our objectives are (1) to demonstrate that our system can deliver plasma reactive ions of sufficient flux to kill pathogens in a practical application and (2) to demonstrate the effectiveness of our system on pathogens in a basic laboratory environment. These objectives are supported by two tasks:Determination of the plasma source operating parameters and performance andDemonstration and measurement of the plasma source efficacy for pathogen treatment. Achievement of the program objectives will be determined by the following measruabel metrics: Bifolm Etch Rate of >50+/- nm/s, Conoly Forming Unit (CFU) reductionod of > 103, and Metaboloic Activity by resazurin reduction of >103. There are two program milestones.Our Milestone (M1) at the end of Year 1 will be demonstration of enhanced ion flux from the DC bias using Ar/O2 for the gas flow.Our Milestone (M2) in Quarter 2 of Year 2 will be demonstration of the optimized device conditions to effect maximal disruption (3-log reduction) of bacterial viability in biofilms.The long term goal of this project is to create a Plasma Agriculture research activity at Boise State University that can work with both the local and national agriculture industry. Agriculture is a major industry in Idaho, and there are numerous national and multi-national agri-businesses in food production, processing, and processing equipment fabrication. We will use this Seed project to demonstrate our technology to potential collaborators and to generate original research for publication. These research publications will allow us to pursue larger grants both from the USDA and the state of Idaho under its IGEM [ ] entrepreneurial program. The results of the research will provide the basis for future grant applications and will allow us to find the area within the agriculture industry in which our technology would have the greatest national impact. We would submit research grants under USDA, NSF, and DoE. In addition, this opportunity will allow us to develop collaboration with both local industry and other Idaho universities with agricultural programs. From an educational perspective, our group has already started a Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) course in atmospheric pressure plasma area. Initially, this project has concentrated on Plasma Medicine with undergraduate students from Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Biology, and Chemistry. This last year we expanded this program to include a group on Food Safety. Students take our course for credit while performing research and learning about research as a career. We will expand this program into agriculture to encourage students from engineering, chemistry, and biology to consider careers in agriculture science and engineering.