EVALUATION OF THE BI-POLAR UNIT USING PLASMA-TECHNOLOGY IN STERILIZING THE ICE-MAKERS

Transcription

1 EVALUATION OF THE BI-POLAR UNIT USING PLASMA-TECHNOLOGY IN STERILIZING THE ICE-MAKERS MITSY VELOZ* 1, DANIUS BOUYI 1, JON BENNERT 2, JEFF BENNERT 2 and NABARUN GHOSH 1 1 Department of Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, Texas and 2 Air Oasis, Research and Development, Amarillo, Texas Introduction:

2 You purchase a soft drink with floating ice cubes from your favorite restaurant. Imagine a group of known and unknown bacteria and molds are entering in your mouth and elementary canal with every sip. These microbial agents may come from the ice cubes floating in your drink. The ice served in six out of ten of Britain s most popular high street restaurants contains more bacteria than the toilet water, in a recent investigation The Daily Mail has found (Ref. 1 below). Scientific tests revealed that ice from McDonald s, Burger King, KFC, Starbucks, Cafe Rouge and Nando s all had higher levels of bacteria than samples of water taken from their lavatory bowls (Ref #2). Dirty ice machines causing contamination via ice cubes is a major health problem in the United States & other countries as well (Ref. # 3). We are giving you some web links for more reading on this fact: Report on Daily Mail (Ref #1): (Ref #2) street.com/2013/06/ice-machines-bacteria-toilet-water.html Report on dirty ice-makers in Houston, Texas containing bacteria (Ref. # 3): To prevent any potential contamination, the interior surfaces of the ice machine must be cleaned and sanitized regularly. This report justifies the demand and use of novel equipment that will sanitize the surface of an ice machine continuously. We evaluated the Bi-Polar unit built by Air Oasis in sanitizing the ice machine surface. Air Oasis has used the AHPCO nanotechnology to develop air purifiers and other devices to ensure the safety in food processing chambers and make the surface of the mobile phone germ-free by reducing aeroallergens, such as pollen, bacteria, fungal

3 spores and hyphae, dust particles, fibers and animal dander. The Bi-Polar uses a different technology. It creates cold plasma discharge, consisting of positive and negative ions from water vapor in the air. Positive and negative ions attach to particles and allergens such as dust, smoke, pollen and dander. The particles then cluster together to create larger particles and those larger heavy particles drop out of the air and are easily trapped in filters. The main objectives of using a Bi-Polar 2400 in ice machines are: 1. Eliminates slime, mold, yeast, bacteria and other impurities 2. Reduces cleaning time in ice makers 3. Extends the life of your ice machine Experimental Trials: We used Brain Heart Infusion Agar Petri-plates (Difco) to assess the capability of the Bi-Polar unit in reducing contamination in the ice makers. Experiment involved using 6 plates for each different setting for the time intervals of 24, 48, 72, 120 and 168 hours. These plates were inoculated with sterile cotton swabs with inoculum randomly collected from different surface areas of the ice maker at the appropriate time intervals to observe the microbial growth after 24 hours of incubation at 37 o Celsius. We prepared slides from bacteria stained with Gram staining and fungi with Lacto-Phenol Cotton Blue stain. The slides were observed and micrographed at 100X with a Leica DM-750 microscope. We compared the inoculated Petri-plates and slides prepared from the 2 sets with and without running the Bi-Polar unit.

4 Fig.1. Shows the Petri-plates inoculated with sterile cotton swabs after incubation of 24, 48, 72 and 120 hours (left to right). Petri plates incubated for 120 hours showed maximum number of microbial colonies (arrow). Fig.2. Petri Plate showing NO colonies of microbes after 120 hour of running the Bi-Polar unit. We found various forms of bacteria and molds, Cyanobacteria and their spores from the swab randomly collected from the wall and the floor of the ice-maker (Figs. 3 A-F).

5 Fig.3A. showing the Gram positive Bacilli from the swab sample collected from the ice maker. B. Gram negative Bacilli from the ice maker floor. C. Penicillium sp. from swab from the wall of the ice maker. D. Swab cultures show spore-forming Bacilli collected from the surface of the ice maker. E. Alternaria alternata conidia. F. Stachybotrys sp. Cultures from the set with no Bi-polar unit, incubated for 24 hrs. We ran the Bi-polar unit, installed inside the ice-maker, in a restaurant in Amarillo, Texas and collected the swabs randomly from the same regions of the wall surface and floor areas of the ice-maker. We produced an Excel graph from the data collected with the time intervals of 24, 48, 72, 120 and 168 hours without running the Bi-polar unit and on running the Bi-polar unit.

6 Number of microbial colonies formed per Petri- plate Comparison of number of microbial colonies formed without running and on running the Bi- Polar unit No Bipolar Bipolar 0 24 hour 48 hour 72 nour 96 hour 120 hour 144 hour 168 hour From the above graphs it is very clear that after 48 hours of running the Bi- Polar unit the microbial count declined continuously, whereas the absence of the Bi-Polar unit kept the microbial concentration inside the ice-maker more or less constant. After the first 24 hours, the Bi-polar built an ambient environment inside the ice-maker. This ambient environment is built because the Bi-Polar creates cold plasma discharge consisting of positive and negative ions from water vapor in the air. Positive and negative ions attach to particles, bacteria and mold spores; then oxidizes them breaking apart their DNA preventing replication. After running the Bi-Polar for 168 hours or more, there was a significant reduction in microbial entities including bacteria, fungi, slime molds and Cyanobacteria that was found as blue green patches on the ice maker s wall. Our investigation demonstrated the possibilities of contamination with a number of pathogens from a not so clean ice maker and that can be reduced significantly by using a Bi-Polar unit.

7 Restaurants, universities, public schools, hospitals, and hotels are the predominant users of the Bi-Polar 2400, but anyone with an ice machine concerned about health should consider this technology too: Reduce ice machine cleaning time Increase the life span of ice machines Reduce service calls relating to ice machines Reduce threat of health code violations for unsanitary ice machines Protect your brand and reputation For the best results, we recommend the continuous use of the Bi-Polar unit and cleaning the icemaker. This is absolutely necessary to remove the inactivated particulate matters from the icemaker. For more efficient performance and cleaning, we also recommend the use of multiple Bi-Polar units, depending on the size of the icemaker.