Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 and Other Enveloped and Non-Enveloped Viruses with Non-Thermal Plasma for Hospital Disinfection

Abstract

As recently highlighted by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, viruses have become an increasing burden for health, global economy, and environment. The control of transmission by contact with contaminated materials represents a major challenge, particularly in hospital environments. However, the current disinfection methods in hospital settings suffer from numerous drawbacks. As a result, several medical supplies that cannot be properly disinfected are not reused, leading to severe shortages and increasing amounts of waste, thus prompting the search for alternative solutions. In this work, we report that nonthermal plasma (NTP) can effectively inactivate SARS-CoV-2 from non-porous and porous materials commonly found in healthcare facilities. We demonstrated that 5 min treatment with a dielectric barrier discharge NTP can inactivate 100% of SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan and Omicron strains) from plastic material. Using porcine respiratory coronavirus (surrogate for SARS-CoV-2) and coxsackievirus B3 (highly resistant non-enveloped virus), we tested the NTP virucidal activity on hospital materials and obtained complete inactivation after 5 and 10 min, respectively. We hypothesize that the produced reactive species and local acidification contribute to the overall virucidal effect of NTP. Our results demonstrate the potential of dielectric barrier discharge NTPs for the rapid, efficient, and low-cost disinfection of healthcare materials.

Recent Progress in Applications of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma for Water Organic Contaminants’ Degradation

“…During plasma therapy, plasma provides an extra layer of oxidative stress to limit HSV-1 infection. Thus, plasma has also proved to be a powerful disinfection method for eliminating viruses from hospital equipment and dinnerware (e.g., plastics and fabrics), such as norovirus (NoV), SARS-CoV-2 and Omicron variants, porcine respiratory coronavirus (PRCV), and coxsackievirus B 3 (CVB 3 ) [59,[150][151][152][153].…”

Non-thermal plasma disinfecting procedure is harmless to delicate items of everyday use

“…This topic became of relevance in reported NTP applications for the decontamination of protective equipment during the pandemic of COVID-19. Several studies were published at this time of lack of protective equipment, mainly face masks and respirators 8 , 9 , 18 – 20 . In our previous study Obrová et al 8 , we reported that NTP can be advantageously used for the decontamination of respiratory P3 R filters without affecting their filtration capacity.…”