A low-pressure capacitively coupled discharge was used to study antimicrobial treatment in herbal tea. Ambient air with a relative humidity of 40% was used as a precursor gas and fed into the chamber via a perforated power electrode. An electrical discharge plasma was produced at a radio frequency of 10 kHz and power of 80 W. The operating pressure during treatment was kept constant at 260 Pa. The target microorganisms, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, isolated from the herbal tea were inoculated on nutrient agar petri dishes and exposed to the plasma for 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 min. All treatments were carried out in triplicate for different exposure times to calculate the D-value by the enumeration method. D-values of 0.73 and 0.67 min were obtained corresponding to E. coli and S. aureus reduction, respectively.
Keywords: Antimicrobial treatment; Escherichia coli; Herbal tea; Low-temperature plasma; Staphylococcus aureus.