Abstract
A steam plasma flow generated by a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at atmospheric pressure was developed to understand the generation mechanism of chemical species and its sterilization efficacy. The OH radical generated by electron collision finally changed to H_2O_2 in the condensed water since the emission lines of OH, whose intensity increased with increased applied voltage and frequency were observed in the discharge region. The OH radical was capable of sterilizing spores of Geobacillus stearothermophilus for 30 minutes when air or argon gas were mixed with the steam flow. The discharge process was also analyzed by a computational method. The OH radical was generated by a wire electrode toward the ground electrode and the concentration of H_2O_2 increased after streamer propagation.
