A combined low-pressure hydrogen peroxide evaporation plus hydrogen plasma treatment method for sterilization - Part 2: An intercomparison study of different biological systems

摘要

Low-pressure plasmas are a promising alternative to modern sterilization processes. As plasma is a surface process, multilayered stacks of spores are a crucial challenge to overcome. Here, a combined process of condensed hydrogen peroxide and hydrogen plasma is analyzed for its efficacy against various spore concentrations showing a clear increase in efficacy using a combined process compared to the two steps used separately. Besides spores, protein contaminations are a major issue in clinics and the combined process is investigated for protein removal efficiency using the well-established BSA model. Furthermore, RNase A serves as a difficult-to-inactivate protein model to investigate protein inactivation efficiency. Finally, inactivation mechanisms of RNase A with a special focus on sulfur-based modifications are investigated using Raman spectroscopy.