Cold atmospheric plasma for SARS-CoV-2 inactivation

Zhitong Chen; Gustavo Garcia Jr; Vaithilingaraja Arumugaswami; Richard E Wirz

doi:10.1063/5.0031332

Cold atmospheric plasma for SARS-CoV-2 inactivation

Phys Fluids (1994). 2020 Nov 1;32(11):111702. doi: 10.1063/5.0031332.

Authors

Zhitong Chen¹, Gustavo Garcia Jr², Vaithilingaraja Arumugaswami, Richard E Wirz¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
² Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

Abstract

Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infectious virions are viable on various surfaces (e.g., plastic, metals, and cardboard) for several hours. This presents a transmission cycle for human infection that can be broken by developing new inactivation approaches. We employed an efficient cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) with argon feed gas to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 on various surfaces including plastic, metal, cardboard, basketball composite leather, football leather, and baseball leather. These results demonstrate the great potential of CAP as a safe and effective means to prevent virus transmission and infections for a wide range of surfaces that experience frequent human contact. Since this is the first-ever demonstration of cold plasma inactivation of SARS-CoV-2, it is a significant milestone in the prevention and treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and presents a new opportunity for the scientific, engineering, and medical communities.