Plasma Decontamination & Sterilization

ASI Technology Corporation owns the rights to new technology focused on decontamination and sterilization. This technology employs resistive electrodes to efficiently produce high volumes of atmospheric pressure plasma known as cold plasma. ASI's cold plasma generation method produces high volumes cold plasma and ozone which have been demonstrated to be useful for sterilization, decontamination and in certain industrial processes.

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DC discharge operating in atmospheric pressure helium. The chamber is about 3 inches high by 3 inches in diameter. The positive electrode is at the top. The ion density has been measured to be 10 exp 12 per cc. This apparatus operates for hours. The power input is about 300 Watts.

In August 2002 ASI was awarded a twelve month Phase I contract by the U.S. Air Force to evaluate ASI's method of generating atmospheric pressure plasmas and their use in decontamination. Eastern Virginia Medical School is a subcontractor on this effort.

This study indicated that our simple biological decontamination apparatus can be used in an effective, economical and safe manner for bacterial decontamination by people not trained in plasma engineering and high voltage technology. Dr. Beebe and his co - workers at Eastern Virginia Medical School demonstrated effective bacterial decontamination without on-site presence of the designers of the apparatus, Dr. Alexeff and his co-workers. The primary finding was that this non-optimized device completely eliminated bacteria in six minutes or less of exposure to cold plasma.

Atmospheric pressure plasmas or room temperature plasmas are known as cold plasmas. Cold plasmas have demonstrated effectiveness in rapid sterilization, decontamination and industrial processing. When generated, cold plasma is a bluish substance that resembles a foglike gas. But cold plasma can destroy deadly microbes lodged on the skin, weapons, medical instruments or clothing. Research has shown that plasma can rapidly break down complex chemicals found in nerve gas and deadly biological agents like anthrax.

The plasma process produces a sterilization effect using lower concentrations of sterilant but with a higher reactivity than possible with normal gases. The activity disappears quickly when power is removed thereby dissipating the toxicity of the sterilant rapidly. Atmospheric pressure plasmas allow for rapid decontamination of clothing, equipment and personal gear in military settings, for sterilization of medical equipment and food in commercial settings. Present methods of decontamination and sterilization often require hours and generate damaging heat; a cold plasma can sanitize often in mere minutes.

Cold plasmas are also employed in industry, in semiconductor manufacturing and new flat screen televisions. During the last five years the U.S. Air Force and other agencies have focused research dollars on biological cold plasma research. Historically such plasmas have been generated in vacuum conditions with other gases or chemicals or with very high power making them cost, weight and size prohibitive for broader applications.

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ASI's consultant, Dr. Igor Alexeff, developed, tested and patented a low power plasma discharge apparatus that operates at atmospheric pressure. The important distinguishing feature of ASI's method is the use of ceramic discharge electrodes that produce an even diffuse discharge in the intended area whereas traditional materials often resulted in a small arc minimizing the discharge area. The discharge also results in large quantities of ozone. Ozone is known as a powerful sterilizing and decontamination agent. As an example, ozone is used frequently to purify water that has too much bacteria to be treated with chlorine.