AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Airborne Inactivation of Enveloped and Non-enveloped Viruses by a Packed Bed Non-thermal Plasma
TIAN XIA, Abby Kleinheksel, Eric Monsu Lee, Zhong Qiao, Krista Wigginton, Herek Clack, University of Michigan
Abstract Number: 699 Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract Transmitted diseases are one of the greatest threats to modern agriculture and food security. They reduce crop yields, diminish animal productivity and increase animal loss from increased mortality and culls during disease outbreaks. It is believed that the prevention of infectious diseases relating to agricultural activities will become increasingly important to insure future food production. While much research has focused on waterborne pathogen inactivation, the same does not hold true for airborne pathogens, particularly for conditions where the objective is a technology capable of airstream disinfection.
For the purpose of developing a novel airstream disinfection technology and contributing to the scientific understanding of spontaneous inactivation of airborne pathogens in a plasma environment, a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) non-thermal plasma reactor was designed and constructed in this study and its airstream disinfection efficiency was examined. Two virus species, MS2 and Phi6, were aerosolized by a nebulizer and suspended in an air flow that passed through the reactor. Two impingers sampled the virus-loaded air flow at both upstream and downstream positions in the reactor, and the samples were analyzed by plaque assay and quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) to determine the active virus number concentration and total virus genome copies. A commercial power meter was used to measure the power consumption of the system. An ozone filter was installed downstream of the reactor and ozone concentration was measured both upstream and downstream of the filter. The results indicate that this preliminary reactor design can achieve up to three-log reduction in infective virus by inactivation and filtration, with volumetric energy consumption (J/L) significantly lower than that of HEPA filtration only. Unfiltered downstream ozone concentrations were not substantially higher than ambient concentrations and the ozone filter effectively counteracted such increases. With further optimization, non-thermal plasma can be a viable technology for airstream disinfection and prevention of airborne disease transmission.