Sterilization and Decontamination of Surfaces Contaminated

Decontamination of military personnel, equipment and facilities that have been exposed to deadly biological and / or chemical warfare agents is of critical concern to U.S. Armed Forces. Conventional technologies used for decontamination and sterilization suffer from drawbacks that include toxic effluents, radiation hazards to personnel, and very long time scales for the decontamination process pressure plasma system, which has already proven effective in sterilizing simple bacteria like E. coli and decomposing chemical warfare agent simulants, to effect sterilization of difficult to neutralize spores like bacillus subtilus. The plasma system will also be used to decontaminate metal and cloth surfaces that have been exposed to chemical warfare agent simulants. Standard characterization techniques, like gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, will be used to determine the residual chemical agent, and by-products, after exposure to the plasma. Standard plating and counting techniques will be used to determine the efficacy of the plasma treatment on the model biological warfare pathogens.