It is estimated that within the next 50 years there will be 10 billion people on Earth, leading to food production and supply challenges. These challenges include the need for safe foods. The production of safe foods already poses a challenge today as illustrated by diseases such as salmonellosis, which caused 60,050 cases in the EU in 2021, a 14.3 % increase compared with the previous year. Meanwhile, the use of traditional chemical antimicrobial agents to fight these pathogens has numerous drawbacks. When traditional antimicrobial strategies reach the limits of their effectiveness, innovative combined treatments will offer solutions to combat foodborne pathogens. Such novel antimicrobial strategies will have a profound effect on the global public health.
The Nanosurf project focused an innovative combination of three technologies, i.e (i) cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), (ii) ultrasound (US) and (iii) the synthesis of nanomaterials (Nps) in one technological chain for decontamination and/or disinfection of biotic/abiotic surfaces. The proposed technology is of particular interest since it relies on water as a medium without the need for any electroconductive additives.
Formal objectives of this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) were to (a) achieve an optimization for the nanoparticles (Nps) composition, technological parameters of CAP-US synthesis of Nps under non-equilibrium state; to achieve a combination of CAP-US synthesis of Nps in one chain for treatment of various surfaces; (b) to demonstrate the efficacy of the technological combination of the CAP process with US treatment in one technological chain for decontamination and/or disinfection of biotic/abiotic surfaces; (c) to study physicochemical, toxicological properties and risk assessment of synthesized Nps. Another goal of the MSCA Individual Fellowship is to bring up the development of the individual researcher. In this project, the objectives and goals have been addressed via three specific work packages: (1) development of an integrated plasma-ultrasound treatments; (2) synthesis and characterization of nanoparticles; (3) antimicrobial efficacy, toxicological and risk assessment of synthesized MeOx NPs.
