STTR Phase I: Protecting Livestock from Airborne Disease Transmission Using Non-thermal Plasma Airstream Disinfection

该STTR项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力源于美国食品生产商因动物疾病爆发而付出的代价。 家禽、猪肉和其他食物蛋白质的生产者每年因传染病损失超过10亿美元，其中包括一些通过空气传播的疾病。 对于通过空气传播的疾病，现有的保护性技术很少，而且实施和操作成本很高。 该项目进一步开发了一种新的替代技术，即非热等离子体，用于同时清除和灭活空气中导致牲畜疾病传播的有机体。 该项目评估了通常在牲畜附近发现的环境条件如何影响非热等离子体的性能。 该项目还寻求一种技术，用于加速改善非热等离子体性能的过程，完成后，可以比现在更快地开发新的和改进的非热等离子体设备。 该项目的完成将有助于开发维持牲畜健康的低成本保护性技术，使更多的粮食蛋白生产者能够在经济上获得这些技术，最终降低粮食成本，加强国内粮食安全。 该STTR第一阶段项目建议通过实验证明和评估非热等离子体（NTP）作为防止外部空气中携带疾病的颗粒感染动物圈养建筑物中饲养的牲畜的有效性。 NTP是稳定的放电，同时有助于去除空气中的颗粒，同时也使它们受到能够杀死有害病毒的化学攻击。 虽然NTPs已被证明用于固定表面的消毒，并在较小程度上用于破坏空气中的化学污染物或生物病原体，但该项目的知识价值源于其对牲畜周围空气中常见的痕量气体、氨和硫化氢的评估，以及它们增强和降低NTPs在农场环境中的性能的潜力。 此外，该项目将确定适用于NTP优化测试的非生物示踪剂，这将加速改进设计的开发。 两个独立的实验室规模的NTP反应堆将用于该项目的执行。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this STTR project stems from the costs to U.S. food producers of outbreaks of animal diseases. Producers of poultry, pork, and other food proteins lose more than $1B each year to infectious diseases, including some that are transmitted through the air. For diseases having an airborne transmission route, protective technologies that are available are few and can be costly to implement and operate. This project furthers the development of a new alternative technology, non-thermal plasmas, for the simultaneous removal and inactivation in air of the organisms responsible for the transmission of disease to livestock. This project evaluates how conditions in the environment typically found near livestock affect the performance of non-thermal plasmas. This project also pursues a technique for accelerating the process of improving non-thermal plasma performance, upon the completion of which new and improved non-thermal plasma devices can be developed for applications such as this more rapidly than is possible now. Completion of the project will enable the development of lower-cost protective technologies for maintaining livestock health, making such technologies economically accessible to a larger segment of food protein producers, ultimately lowering food costs and increasing domestic food security. This STTR Phase I project proposes to experimentally demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of a non-thermal plasma (NTP) as a means of preventing disease-carrying particles in outside air from infecting livestock housed in animal confinement buildings. NTPs are stable electrical discharges that simultaneously contribute to the removal of airborne particles while also subjecting them to chemical attack capable of killing harmful viruses. While NTPs have been demonstrated for disinfection of fixed surfaces, and to a lesser degree for the destruction of chemical contaminants or biological pathogens in air, the intellectual merit of this project stems from its evaluation of trace gases commonly present in the air around livestock, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, and their potential to both enhance and diminish the performance of NTPs used in farm environments. Additionally, this project will identify non-biological tracers suitable for use in NTP optimization testing which will accelerate the development of improved designs. Two separate lab-scale NTP reactors will be used in the execution of the project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.