Low-temperature sterilization of wrapped materials using flexible sheet-type dielectric barrier discharge

A flexible sheet-type dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) was studied for the low-temperature sterilization of medical instruments wrapped with Tyvek packaging. Sterilization experiments using Geobacillus stearothermophilus spores with a population of 106 were carried out with various mixtures of nitrogen and oxygen. We confirmed the inactivation of spores after 4.5 min of DBD irradiation at a temperature of 28.4 °C and relative humidity of 64.4%. The main sterilizing factors of this method are the ozone and UV emissions generated by DBD in dry air and synergistic OH radicals generated by DBD in moist air.

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