3.5a. Effect of plasma treatment on
viability of B. subtilis 168 endospores. Purified
spores were lyophilized on glass slides and
exposed to plasma at a distance of 5 cm to the
plasma source. Error bars indicate ± one
standard error. Initial spore count (N0) was
1.2 × 108 cfu per substrate. The line represents
the biphasic model fitted to the data. The
experiments were performed on the DSA701
plasma system using the following
parameters: microwave power 4 kW; pressure
70 Pa, process gas mixture 80% nitrogen and
20% oxygen