Plasma-treated liquids as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional disinfectants for the sanitization of food processing facilities - shelf life characteristics and antibacterial efficacy

Plasma-treated liquids are produced by atmospheric pressure plasma treatment, which introduces reactive nitrogen and oxygen species. Due to these species, the liquids exhibit an antimicrobial efficacy. Therefore, their use as disinfectants is being widely investigated, especially in the food industry. However, there are only a few studies on the efficacy of freshly prepared and even less on stored plasma-treated liquids regarding its use as disinfectant. In our study, we produced plasma-treated liquids from saline with an arc discharge plasma jet and characterized the liquid during storage. In microbiological studies, the antibacterial efficacy was tested on different surfaces. Our study revealed that the antimicrobial efficacy is reduces during storage despite chemical characteristics show a stable behaviour. However, the plasma treated liquids showed good antibacterial efficacy until 3 days of storage and achieved a microbial reduction sufficient for disinfection, showing its potential to be used as a disinfectant in food production.