{"title":"Using Viral Aerosol Fluorescence for Detection of Virus Infectivity Change Induced by Non-thermal Plasma","authors":"Zhenyu Ma, Herek L. Clack","doi":"10.1007/s11090-026-10648-6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Airborne transmission of infectious diseases poses a great threat to public health and the global economy, prompting increased interest in the detection and mitigation of infectious airborne pathogens. Development of air disinfection technologies – those that rely on pathogen neutralization or inactivation rather than particle filtration, such as non-thermal plasma (NTP) – can require extensive tests to determine how the degree of disinfection is affected by operational settings, environmental conditions, aerosol composition, pathogen type, among other factors. Such parametric evaluation is made much more tedious by the need to physically extract pre- and post-treatment aerosol samples for comparative microbiological assays in order to measure change in pathogen viability and the efficacy of the neutralization/inactivation process. UV aerosol fluorescence has been used to detect and characterize aerosols of biological origin, such as pollen. In this study, UV fluorescence of MS2 bacteriophage aerosol is studied for its potential to serve as an indicator of changing viral aerosol infectivity, one that can provide a quicker indication of a change in viral aerosol infectivity than conventional bioaerosol collection followed by microbiological assay. In the present study, infectivity assays and fluorescence measurements of viral aerosols are taken before and after non-thermal plasma treatment. Results indicate that NTP treatment induces infectivity loss and diminished fluorescence intensity. Diminished fluorescence intensity and reduced infectivity are positively correlated, both becoming more pronounced with increased intensity of non-thermal plasma treatment. These findings suggest UV aerosol fluorescence could serve as a fast indicator of airborne virus infectivity change during test, evaluation, and optimization of air disinfection processes like NTP.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":734,"journal":{"name":"Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing","volume":"46 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2026-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11090-026-10648-6.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11090-026-10648-6","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Airborne transmission of infectious diseases poses a great threat to public health and the global economy, prompting increased interest in the detection and mitigation of infectious airborne pathogens. Development of air disinfection technologies – those that rely on pathogen neutralization or inactivation rather than particle filtration, such as non-thermal plasma (NTP) – can require extensive tests to determine how the degree of disinfection is affected by operational settings, environmental conditions, aerosol composition, pathogen type, among other factors. Such parametric evaluation is made much more tedious by the need to physically extract pre- and post-treatment aerosol samples for comparative microbiological assays in order to measure change in pathogen viability and the efficacy of the neutralization/inactivation process. UV aerosol fluorescence has been used to detect and characterize aerosols of biological origin, such as pollen. In this study, UV fluorescence of MS2 bacteriophage aerosol is studied for its potential to serve as an indicator of changing viral aerosol infectivity, one that can provide a quicker indication of a change in viral aerosol infectivity than conventional bioaerosol collection followed by microbiological assay. In the present study, infectivity assays and fluorescence measurements of viral aerosols are taken before and after non-thermal plasma treatment. Results indicate that NTP treatment induces infectivity loss and diminished fluorescence intensity. Diminished fluorescence intensity and reduced infectivity are positively correlated, both becoming more pronounced with increased intensity of non-thermal plasma treatment. These findings suggest UV aerosol fluorescence could serve as a fast indicator of airborne virus infectivity change during test, evaluation, and optimization of air disinfection processes like NTP.
期刊介绍：
Publishing original papers on fundamental and applied research in plasma chemistry and plasma processing, the scope of this journal includes processing plasmas ranging from non-thermal plasmas to thermal plasmas, and fundamental plasma studies as well as studies of specific plasma applications. Such applications include but are not limited to plasma catalysis, environmental processing including treatment of liquids and gases, biological applications of plasmas including plasma medicine and agriculture, surface modification and deposition, powder and nanostructure synthesis, energy applications including plasma combustion and reforming, resource recovery, coupling of plasmas and electrochemistry, and plasma etching. Studies of chemical kinetics in plasmas, and the interactions of plasmas with surfaces are also solicited. It is essential that submissions include substantial consideration of the role of the plasma, for example, the relevant plasma chemistry, plasma physics or plasma–surface interactions; manuscripts that consider solely the properties of materials or substances processed using a plasma are not within the journal’s scope.
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