TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of Plasma on Physical Properties of Water
T2 - Nanocrystalline-to-Amorphous Phase Transition and Improving Produce Washing
AU - He, Jinjie
AU - Rabinovich, Alexander
AU - Vainchtein, Dmitri
AU - Fridman, Alexander
AU - Sales, Christopher
AU - Shneider, Mikhail N.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Washing fresh produce using Plasma-activated water recently became a promising eco-friendly alternative to using chemical additives such as Chlorine. We discuss the produce-washing experiments that illustrate that addition of plasma to washing water is a multi-faced phenomena. Not only it increases the sterilization ability of water by killing pathogens, but it also has improved washibility: the ability to remove pathogens from the cleaning surface. We propose an explanation of these features based on the recently discoveries that many physical and chemical properties of water change their temperature dependence between about 35 and 60 degrees Celsius. In particular, heat conductance, light absorption, and surface tension all change their temperature dependence. These drastic changes were associated with water gradually changing its mesoscopic structure: while at the higher temperatures water is a uniform media (amorphous state), at the temperatures below transition it consists of many nano-to-micro-scale clusters (crystalline state). This transition is similar to the second order phase transition. In the present paper we propose that treating water with non-thermal plasma (adding plasma-created active compounds) can lower the temperature of the transition and thus cause a significant change in such physical quantities as surface tension, viscosity, freezing rate, and wettability and washability.
AB - Washing fresh produce using Plasma-activated water recently became a promising eco-friendly alternative to using chemical additives such as Chlorine. We discuss the produce-washing experiments that illustrate that addition of plasma to washing water is a multi-faced phenomena. Not only it increases the sterilization ability of water by killing pathogens, but it also has improved washibility: the ability to remove pathogens from the cleaning surface. We propose an explanation of these features based on the recently discoveries that many physical and chemical properties of water change their temperature dependence between about 35 and 60 degrees Celsius. In particular, heat conductance, light absorption, and surface tension all change their temperature dependence. These drastic changes were associated with water gradually changing its mesoscopic structure: while at the higher temperatures water is a uniform media (amorphous state), at the temperatures below transition it consists of many nano-to-micro-scale clusters (crystalline state). This transition is similar to the second order phase transition. In the present paper we propose that treating water with non-thermal plasma (adding plasma-created active compounds) can lower the temperature of the transition and thus cause a significant change in such physical quantities as surface tension, viscosity, freezing rate, and wettability and washability.
KW - phase transition
KW - plasma
KW - sterilization
KW - water
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U2 - 10.3390/plasma5040034
DO - 10.3390/plasma5040034
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85158118586
SN - 2571-6182
VL - 5
SP - 462
EP - 469
JO - Plasma
JF - Plasma
IS - 4
ER -