Principal investigator: Kevin Keener

Coinvestigator: Tereza Merinska, Mitchell Walker, Simontika Chowdhury, Sabrina Taraborelli

Years the work was done: 2021-2023

Overall objective: To evaluate the ability of plasma activated water to reduce Salmonella spp. on different surfaces in the barn environment.

Outcomes:

• A procedure was developed to generate plasma activated water (PAW) using only water, air, and a small amount of electricity; the resulting solution contained dissolved peroxide and nitrate ions.
• The PAW that was generated and tested was able to achieve greater than 99.9% reduction in recovered Salmonella spp. from stainless steels and PVC surfaces
  • Wood surfaces showed more than 90% reduction in Salmonella spp. after 30s of exposure, with 99.7% reduction after 30min of PAW treatment
  • Salmonella spp. reductions from concrete surfaces were lower and more variable; further investigation is needed to determine if higher concentrations of hydrogen peroxide and nitrate can lead to greater reductions
• Nitrate and peroxide concentrations in PAW decrease over time but refrigerated PAW retains its maximum efficacy for 14 days
• PAW retains its ability to kill more than 99.5% of Samonella spp. from steel surfaces after 28 days in 4°C and 20°C temperatures

Application: PAW shows promise as a potential, low-cost disinfectant in poultry barns. Further research is needed to enhance efficacy of PAW for decontamination of concrete, and to determine concentrations of the reactive species needed to achieve disinfectant classification.

Funding: This research was supported by Chicken Farmers of Canada and the Barret Foundation