Antimicrobial treatment of heat sensitive products by atmospheric pressure plasma sources

The technological potential of non-thermal plasmas for the antimicrobial treatment of heat sensitive materials is well known. Despite a multitude of scientific activities with considerable progress within the last years the realization of industrial plasma-based decontamination or sterilization technology remains a great challenge. The aim of the work presented in this contribution is to demonstrate the applicability of plasma-based processes for the antimicrobial treatment on selected, heat sensitive products. The idea is to use modular and selective plasma sources. These plasma sources are driven at atmospheric pressure due to its technological advantages (avoidance of vacuum devices and batch processing). According to the specific requirements given by the product different plasma sources, namely rf-driven plasma jets, microwave-driven air plasmas are used.