Researchers from Germany’s Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik und Bioökonomie e.V. (ATB) have devised a new approach for cleaning industrial food processing equipment with plasma instead of chemical disinfectants.

Currently, food processing equipment — like conveyor belts — are cleaned using chemical disinfectants to minimize the health risks occurring all along the food processing chain. However, this approach reportedly leaves behind environmentally hazardous traces.

Source: ATB

As such, the ATB team developed the new disinfection method wherein plasma-treated air is injected into tap or distilled water to create plasma-treated water. The mixture, according to the researchers, contains several reactive nitrogen and oxygen species including nitrous acid (HNO₂), nitrogen monoxide (NO*) and ozone (O₃) — all of which are naturally occurring and degrade without leaving behind environmentally harmful traces while also demonstrating high antimicrobial efficiency.

Trialed against common disinfectants to clean residues from minced meat and Braeburn apples on silicone and PVC conveyor belts, the plasma-treated water reportedly proved effective against microbial contamination in shorter exposure time frames and without leaving behind environmentally hazardous traces, as revealed by an RGB color sensor system developed by ATB for the automated detection of food residues on the belts.

The research appears in the article, Optimized cleaning of conveyor belts using plasma-processed water assisted by optical detection of food residues, which was published in the journal Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies.