Further testing showed that the virus was destroyed at similar times on cotton wool from face masks. (File)
Los Angeles:
Plasma jets can kill the novel coronavirus on surfaces such as metal, leather and plastic in as little as 30 seconds, study suggests that plasma could promise a significant breakthrough in the fight against the spread of COVID- 19.
Plasma is one of the four basic states of matter and can be created by heating a stable gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field.
Published in the journal Physics of Fluids, the modeling study conducted in June showed that strains of the novel coronavirus on surfaces such as metal, leather and plastic were killed in as little as 30 seconds of treatment with cold atmospheric plasma fed with argon.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States used an atmospheric pressure plasma jet they built with a 3D printer to spray surfaces treated with cultures of SARS-CoV-2 .
Surfaces included plastic, metal, cardboard, and basketball, football, and baseball leather.
Spraying using argon-fueled plasma killed all of the coronaviruses on all six surfaces within three minutes, and most of the virus was destroyed after 30 seconds.
Further testing showed that the virus was destroyed at similar times on cotton wool from face masks.
The new coronavirus can remain infectious on surfaces for several hours. According to study author Richard E. Wirz, the results show great potential for using plasma to stop the cycle of virus transmission.
“This is just the start. We are very confident and have very high expectations for plasma in future work. In the future, a lot of the answers for the scientific community will come from plasma,” Wirz said.
A relatively new technology, cold atmospheric plasma is an ionized gas near room temperature that has been shown to be effective in cancer treatments, wound healing, dentistry and other medical applications.
The researchers performed a similar coronavirus test with helium-fed plasma, but the helium was not effective, even with treatments lasting up to five minutes.
They believe this was due to lower levels of reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen when using gas fed with helium, compared to argon.
The researchers said they were building a compact device that could be widely used to treat surfaces of the coronavirus with plasma.
It’s a safer and healthier option than chemicals or other treatments, they said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
