PurePowder?: A New Process for Sterilization and Disinfecting of Agricultural and Botanical Herbal Products

摘要

Herbal powders comprise a large portion of the botanical products sold in the dietary supplement market. These powders are generally contaminated with microbial organisms found in botanical raw materials either harvested from farms or collected from the wild. Currently, ethylene oxide and gamma irradiation are the dominant modes used to sterilize botanical powders. However, these technologies have recently been subject to safety concerns due to their potentially harmful effects on human health. We report here a new process as an alternative to sterilizing and disinfecting botanical powders using hydrogen peroxide. The mechanism of the sterilization and disinfection is the use of hydrogen peroxide whereby contaminated products are brought into contact with nascent oxygen, resulting in the oxidization and destruction of the contaminating microorganisms.