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Handheld plasma flashlight rids skin of notorious pathogens
Date:4/4/2012

A group of Chinese and Australian scientists have developed a handheld, battery-powered plasma-producing device that can rid skin of bacteria in an instant.

The device could be used in ambulance emergency calls, natural disaster sites, military combat operations and many other instances where treatment is required in remote locations.

The plasma flashlight, presented today, 5 April, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics is driven by a 12 V battery and doesn't require any external generator or wall power; it also doesn't require any external gas feed or handling system.

In the experiment, the plasma flashlight effectively inactivated a thick biofilm of one of the most antibiotic- and heat-resistant bacteria, Enterococcus faecalis a bacterium which often infects the root canals during dental treatments.

The biofilms were created by incubating the bacteria for seven days. The biofilms were around 25 micrometres thick and consisted of 17 different layers of bacteria. Each one was treated for five minutes with the plasma flashlight and then analysed to see how much of the bacteria survived.

Results showed that the plasma not only inactivated the top layer of cells, but penetrated deep into the very bottom of the layers to kill the bacteria.

Co-author of the study, Professor Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov, from the Plasma Nanoscience Centre Australia, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, said: "The bacteria form thick biofilms, which makes them enormously resistant against inactivation which is extremely difficult to implement. High temperatures are commonly used but they would obviously burn our skin.

"In this study we chose an extreme example to demonstrate that the plasma flashlight can be very effective even at room temperature. For individual bacteria, the inactivation time could be just tens of seconds."

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Contact: Michael Bishop
michael.bishop@iop.org
44-117-930-1032
Institute of Physics
Source:Eurekalert

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