Plasma-based sterilization of medical cannabis

医用大麻的等离子体灭菌

• 批准号: 529460-2018
• 负责人: Wertheimer, Michael
• 金额: $ 1.82万
• 依托单位: École Polytechnique de Montréal
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Engage Grants Program
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=668412
• 关键词: Plasma; based; sterilization; medical; cannabis

Canada is now poised to open the market for wide-scale legal use of cannabis by the general population.**However, there already exists a large and growing market of this product for medical use. WeedMD Rx Inc**(WMDI) is a licensed producer under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purpose Regulations (ACMPR) to**produce and sell dry cannabis products. The regulated requirements imposed by ACMPR are extremely**stringent for microbial contamination: cannabis producers must provide material that is nearly devoid of**microbes, extremely difficult to achieve in industrial settings. Currently there are two technological approaches**to sterilize dry medicinal cannabis: (i) gamma irradiation or (ii) electron beam sterilization. However, both**these methodologies are problematic in that they either result in heating, which alters the pharmaceutical**properties of cannabis, or they are capital intensive and only regionally available. The purpose of the current**proposal is to investigate the use of "cold" (near 300 K) gas discharge plasmas, a potentially cheap, up-scalable**approach for use in decontamination of medical cannabis.

加拿大现在准备开放市场，供普通民众大规模合法使用大麻。**然而，该产品的医疗用途已经存在一个巨大且不断增长的市场。WeedMD Rx Inc**(WMDI)是一家根据《医用大麻获取条例》（ACMPR）获得许可的生产商，可以**生产和销售干大麻产品。ACMPR对微生物污染的监管要求非常严格：大麻生产商必须提供几乎不含微生物的材料，这在工业环境中是极难实现的。目前有两种灭菌干药用大麻的技术方法**:(i)伽马辐照或（ii）电子束灭菌。然而，这两种方法都存在问题，因为它们要么导致加热，从而改变大麻的药物特性，要么是资本密集型的，只能在区域内获得。当前提案的目的是研究“冷”（接近300 K）气体放电等离子体的使用，这是一种潜在的廉价、可扩展的用于医用大麻净化的方法。